"Kristen" : Spitzer :: FAA : Airlines
At the end of this Times story describing how the FAA had continued to let Southwest Airlines fly planes for months after their inspection deadlines had passed, Kevin Mitchell of the Business Travel Coalition says that FAA officials constantly refer to airlines as "customers." Mitchell correctly concludes that "the culture there is dysfunctional."
The idea that regulatory agencies exist to serve the industries they are supposed to oversee is deeply held by the conservative movement, and has permeated the thinking and actions of the Bush administration. That mindset has exacerbated all kinds of threats to public health, safety, and the environment. But regulatory agencies are supposed to enforce rules, which means that they are supposed to act more like the agents who caught Eliot Spitzer rather than the woman he hired.
In the case of the FAA, one example is the extent to which airlines have outsourced aircraft maintenance overseas -- where contractors are subject to far less oversight. The number of FAA-certified foreign repair stations increased from 344 in 1994 to 698 in 2007, including facilities in operations in China, El Salvador, Mexico, and the Philippines. But even foreign station certified by the FAA are not required to have drug and alcohol testing programs, employ FAA-certified personnel, and other security standards. They are also much less frequently inspected than domestic facilities. Outsourcing was implicated in a 2003 commuter-plane crash in Charlotte, North Carolina. A report by the Transportation Department's Inspector General identified more than 1,400 facilities performing airplane maintenance that aren't certified by the FAA, including 100 in foreign countries. Another inspector general report released last month also found major holes and weaknesses in the FAA's oversight of parts suppliers to the airline industry.
It would be easy for this sort of thing to get short shrift relative to issues like the war and the economy during the campaign season. But the systematic sabotage of laws and regulations that would protect the health and safety of Americans, putting us at greater risk, is one the most important reasons why conservative ideologues no longer should be trusted to govern.
Comments (15)
Yes, I think the "Emperors VIP Club" is a perfect name for the federal regulatory apparatus under the current administration. American corporations get a true girlfriend experience from Kristen Bush.
March 13, 2008 5:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
"...conservative ideologues no longer should be trusted to govern. "
I agree. I also believe that our entire federal government has proved beyond any doubt that it cannot be trusted to govern.
March 13, 2008 5:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
While I agree that regulators should not in any way feel beholden to those they regulate, I do think that regulators should provide excellent customer service to those regulated.
That doesn't mean that I think regulators must provide the regulated with the answer the regulated seek, but only that regulators should provide determinations that are faithful to the law in a timely manner.
Nor do I think that regulatory functions should be "out sourced". Out sourcing not only is more expensive for taxpayers (Davis Bacon Act), but accountability is also diminished.
March 13, 2008 6:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Anrig,
I must take exception to your claim that "the idea that regulatory agencies exist to serve the industries they are supposed to oversee is deeply held by the conservative movement." You cast conservatives as wanting to put regulatory agencies in a subservient role to the industries they regulate. First, as you well know, conservatives, like liberals, are a heterogeneous lot; there are not very many common and unifying characteristics of every single conservative, and this issue certainly isn't one of them. While there are those rent-seeking conservatives who see government as a tool to be used by business, I would say that the more thoughtful free-market conservatives would say: "I told you so." We get this result any time we put immense power into any organization and then expect the individuals involved to act angelically. Such is not going to be the case, ever, whether it be with government or with a corporation. Power corrupts and all that. That is why we have separation of powers in government, and that is why we should not have single regulatory agencies charged with oversight of an entire industry.
March 13, 2008 6:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was going to reply to this. Then I thought... "Why bother?" He's obviously just going through the motions. Why should I respond to such an obviously substandard, lacklustre effort at ideological whinginess. Clearly, he doesn't believe it, and he can't even be bothered to make a pretense.
'power corrupts and all that'
Sad.
March 14, 2008 11:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
chemjeff,
Mr. Anrig was careful to delineate that it is the "conservative movement", not specific conservatives, that have this deeply held idea. A careful analysis of "movement conservatives" ideology would definitely support his claim. Also please explain what exactly a "thoughtful free-market conservative" (second cousin to the Easter Bunny) would say about outsourcing regulatory functions and what they would think about addressing those they regulate as "customers." When you finish those requests please be kind enough to point me to a single example of a true "free market." Thanks.
March 14, 2008 11:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, Mr Anrig, here you go again, pretending that Federal bureaucracy performed flawlessly from 1994 - 2000 and then fell apart after that.
The issues raised in the reports you cite are real issues, but if you weren't grinding an ax or had some knowledge of FAA Repair Stations, you'd know that they are the same issues the FAA was dealing with in the 1990s, when those good guys were running the FAA.
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But Jameson W. Doig, a professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University, who has written about mismanagement in organizations, said the cases of Mr. James and the Aloha, Delta and agency turboprop crashes sent a message that weak or misguided performance was tolerated within the agency.
While similar problems may exist in other Government agencies, Mr. Mead of the General Accounting Office said those at the F.A.A. should be taken more seriously because the safety of the public is at stake. Training Schooling Here, Inspecting There
The foundation of the aviation inspection system is training. Inspectors must know, for example, how pilots are supposed to communicate in the cockpit and spot signs when procedures are not followed properly.
But many inspectors, including more than a dozen of about 20 interviewed for this article, say they do not receive the training they need. The agency's records on inspectors' surveillance flights with pilots in ATR planes, requested by The New York Times through the Freedom of Information Act, show that in the year that ended in June, no more than 4 percent of the inspectors who oversaw ATR pilots at work were fully qualified to fly the plane themselves. The Times chose the ATR records in part because the F.A.A. had ordered increased surveillance of pilots of the aircraft after an American Eagle ATR crashed in icy weather last fall in Roselawn, Ind., killing all 68 aboard.
F.A.A. officials say the agency's limited training budget is to blame for any inability to keep its pilots fully trained.
But some agency critics argue that the agency does not make the best use of the money it has. Last year, the General Accounting Office criticized the F.A.A. for not filling all its training slots. Last year, 14 percent went unfilled.
As for the agency's oversight of ATR pilots, F.A.A. officials say that inspectors need a general understanding of aircraft systems and procedures, but that it is not necessary for inspectors to know how to fly the plane for them to perform effective surveillance on flights.
MARGINAL SAFETY: A special report.; F.A.A.'s Lax Inspection Setup Heightens Dangers in the Sky
By ADAM BRYANT
Published: October 15, 1995
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Over the past several years, a variety of General Accounting Office (GAO) and DOT Inspector General reports have been issued questioning the adequacy of the FAA's inspection process to ensure safety. Following the ValuJet and TWA 800 disasters in 1996, additional investigations and reviews of aviation safety and security were launched. These reports also made recommendations on how FAA could improve its oversight of maintenance functions.
In May 1998, FAA responded to these concerns by redesigning the inspection system and creating the Air Transportation Oversight System (ATOS). The purpose of the new system was to better enable FAA inspectors to analyze safety trends and identify potential problems before they led to an incident or accident. The system was to be data-driven and provide a more prospective and risk-targeted approach to safety. Under ATOS, an air carrier's operations have been separated into 7 systems, 15 subsystems, and 95 underlying component "elements" which provide the structure for conducting surveillance, collecting data, and identifying risks or areas of concern.
Under ATOS, the FAA assigns a team of inspectors to oversee each airline. Approximately 457 of the FAA's 3,259 inspectors are assigned to the 10 ATOS teams. The FAA's guidance requires a comprehensive surveillance plan for each airline. The surveillance plan includes a series of inspection tasks to: 1. ensure that the airline has a safety system in place and 2. verify that the airline uses that system. The FAA also has developed guidance that describes the tasks to be performed for each type of inspection. The goal of this guidance was to standardize inspection activities across airlines and also provide a data template for reporting inspection results to the ATOS database.
In October 1998, the FAA began implementing the first phase of ATOS. Ten major airlines are currently inspected via the ATOS system. These airlines are Alaska, America West, American, Continental, Delta, Northwest, Southwest, Trans World, United, and US Airways. However, ATOS is not yet fully operational at any one airline. The ATOS is composed of 8 elements. The final two elements (analysis and implementation) are not yet functioning. FAA has indicated that it plans to issue draft policies and procedures for these elements this month, but these will still have to be field tested before they are finalized.
Some of the concerns about the FAA's ability to ensure safety have included: an unstructured inspection process, inadequate training for inspectors, the quality and consistency of inspection data, and the usefulness of those data for identifying safety problems and targeting the agency's resources to the greatest risks. To address these concerns, the goal of ATOS is to identify risks by integrating the inspector's work with hard data. The ATOS database should identify emerging safety trends and direct inspectors to re-target surveillance based on data that is shared nationwide.
ATOS IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES
Beginning in October 1998, ATOS was to be phased-in over three years for all air carriers. However, ATOS is not yet fully implemented at any of the 10 major airlines (9 with the AA/TWA merger). Past reports indicate that FAA's guidance for inspectors has not been clear enough, resulting in confusion and inconsistency for inspectors.
Also, data usefulness has been questioned. The 95 ATOS elements containing job aids with inspection tasks are still not complete and are currently being rewritten to make them more useful to inspectors. Ultimately, this drawn out implementation phase is not producing thorough and consistent data, limiting the usefulness of data for analysis and targeting. Before ATOS was created, FAA utilized a data analysis system with surveillance and safety information called the Safety Performance Analysis System (SPAS). All the data on the large carriers was in this system and used by inspectors. At one point, the two databases were not connected, but the FAA has indicated that now inspectors and analysts can access data in both systems.
Finally, inspectors have raised concerns about inadequate training on both the ATOS concept as well as on airline specific issues. Clearly, the aviation environment is becoming more complex making the need for training even more critical. If ATOS works as it should, it will help FAA better utilize its limited number of inspectors to work on the most critical safety issues.
http://www.iasa.com.au/folders/Safety_Issues/FAA_Inaction/theATOSfail.html
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http://www.gao.gov/archive/1999/rc99183.pdf
Although ATOS calls for (1) more systematic, structured inspections,
(2) closer links between inspectors’ training and their assigned work
responsibilities, and (3) greater use of team inspections to improve
inspection quality, its success in the first 6 months has been limited:
• Inspection guidance is not complete and is not sufficiently clear and
detailed to accomplish the systematic, structured inspections promised by
the ATOS concept.
ATOS has not resolved the long-standing problems with matching
inspectors’ qualifications to their work assignments.
• Team inspections are hampered by problems with assigning inspectors,
including turnover, work locations that do not match inspection needs, an
unwillingness of inspectors to travel, and FAA’s inability to estimate the
resources needed to complete ATOS inspections.
ATOS Inspection Guidance
Needs Significant Improvement
The new inspection guidance is not adequate to ensure the
comprehensive, standardized inspections envisioned by the ATOS concept.
We found several problems with the ATOS inspection guidance
Guidance does not cover all applicable regulations. One basic purpose of
inspections is to ensure that an airline complies with Federal Aviation
Regulations. Although ATOS aims to go beyond ensuring compliance to see
whether safety is built into an airline’s operations, compliance should also
be confirmed. Principal inspectors we interviewed expressed several
concerns about the link between the ATOS inspection guidance and aviation
regulations. One group of inspectors analyzed the ATOS inspection
guidance to determine whether it covered all applicable Federal Aviation
Regulations. They identified 296 specific regulatory requirements that the
ATOS inspection guidance did not address out of approximately 2,300
applicable requirements.
Links Between Inspectors’
Qualifications and Assignments
Are Not Fully Established
Assignment Issues Affect the
Quality of Team Inspections
ATOS’ Targeting
Capabilities Are Limited by
Inadequate Inspection
Guidance and Problems
With the Usefulness of
Data
FAA Did Not Take
Advantage of Industry
Expertise in Developing
ATOS
Lets'
see that was in 1998. Who ran the FAA then?
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Loved this one - another Reinventing Government success story from 1999
The Federal Managers Association denounced FAA's plan to pay for controllers' raises by eliminating 700 supervisory positions. FMA officials pointed out that an earlier initiative inspired by Vice President Al Gore's reinventing government team to reduce the proportion of supervisors had been abandoned by FAA as detrimental to air traffic control. In November, Transportation Inspector General Kenneth Mead recommended that the FAA carefully analyze how essential duties currently performed by supervisors would be handled before cutting back.
http://www.govexec.com/gpp/0299faa.htm
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More selective memory - like earlier posts on FEMA
March 14, 2008 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, here's another one
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The January 1997 crash of Cincinnati-to-Detroit Comair Flight 3272 represented a failure of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to set adequate safety standards for icy conditions, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) concluded Thursday.
Wrapping up a 19-month investigation, the NTSB came down hard on the FAA, while saying actions by the flight crew and management of the airline generally contributed to the accident as well.
FAA gets main blame for Comair crash
http://www.enquirer.com/editions/1998/08/28/loc_comair28.html
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But regulatory agencies are supposed to enforce rules, which means that they are supposed to act more like the agents who caught Eliot Spitzer rather than the woman he hired.
In the case of the FAA, one example is the extent to which airlines have outsourced aircraft maintenance overseas -- where contractors are subject to far less oversight. The number of FAA-certified foreign repair stations increased from 344 in 1994 to 698 in 2007, including facilities in operations in China, El Salvador, Mexico, and the Philippines. But even foreign station certified by the FAA are not required to have drug and alcohol testing programs, employ FAA-certified personnel, and other security standards. They are also much less frequently inspected than domestic facilities.
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I can see your point that it would probably be a good idea for the FAA to increase oversight on foreign repair stations - providing you can get through the wicket of getting the home country to go along. But why is this issue laid at the feet of the current administration?
You might have a point if the FAA had RELAXED oversight of foreign repair stations after 2000, but it didn't - those are the same oversight requirements implemented during the Clinton Administration. Apparently in your world it was just fine then, even though the trend to maintenance outsourcing started early in the 1990s.
If it's a problem in 2008, it was a problem in 1998 and your heroes did nothing about it
March 14, 2008 1:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey El Campesino,
It's been a long time! I thought you retired from tpmcafe ages ago. So where is it exactly, whether in this post or in my book, that I wrote that the federal bureaucracy performed flawlessly from 1994-2000? What I have written is that, in the past, government agencies under leaders who believe in the public sector have been reformed in ways that improved upon previous performance. FEMA under James Lee Witt is one obvious example -- FEMA wasn't perfect in the 1990s but it was widely acknowledged to have made great strides over that period by both Democrats and Republicans.
In contrast, under conservative leadership, virtually every federal agency has become far less effective than before at carrying out its mandates. Lots and lots of detail in my book on that. And also, during the 1990s, the budgetary pressures induced by the ascent of Gingrich and the Republican Congress, did enormous damage to agencies like the FDA. Here's a piece on that I wrote for the Prospect recently on that subject:
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=who_strangled_the_fda
March 14, 2008 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
In contrast, under conservative leadership, virtually every federal agency has become far less effective than before at carrying out its mandates. Lots and lots of detail in my book on that.
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Well, I spent January and February out doing fieldwork and didn't have the time to comment.
So, my anecdotal cites won't sway you I guess we'll have to deal with real statistics about how *less effective* the FAA has become under the Bush Administration.
Look here:
Statistical information regarding the number of fatal airliner hull-loss accidents and fatalities per year is given
Year Accidents Casualties
2007 26 750
2006 27 888
2005 35 1059
2004 28 429
2003 25 679
2002 37 1101
2001 28 768
2000 36 1082
1999 42 671
1998 39 1219
1997 42 1240
1996 52 1817
1995 50 1173
1994 53 1462
1993 48 1138
This information can be found here:
http://aviation-safety.net/statistics/period/stats.php?cat=A1
Compare the average number of accidents per year and fatalities per year for the first seven years of the Clinton Administration and the first seven of the Bush Administration. You'll see the average number of accidents fell from 46 to 29 (a 36% drop) and the average number of fatalities fell from 1245 to 810 (a 34% drop).
And those are just raw numbers - if you factor in airline passenger-miles (which are up) it makes the numbers even better for the last seven years.
So can you show me statistically how the FAA was hamstrung 2001 - 2007 and better able to do its job 1993 - 1999?
And just so you know I'm not talking through my hat, I served as the procurement manager for two FAA repair stations in California from 1999 - 2002 and spent many, many hours working with FAA inspectors. I've lived it.
March 14, 2008 2:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
E.C.,
Of course, a lot of factors come into play beyond the FAA's capabilities in determining the numbers of accidents and fatalities. In any case, it's obvious to everyone outside of the administration that significant, growing risks have been left unaddressed and are posing increasing danger to the public as a result.
I'll repeat my two main points, which nothing you have said contradicts. 1) The conservative movement's approach to regulation, which denigrates enforcement and promotes passivity, is antithetical to the missions of the agencies and the laws they are responsible for administering; 2) The consequences of that mindset (which manifested itself as well through meager regulatory agency budgets in the 1990s -- that era was no panacea for regulation) is that the public is at much greater risk than it would have been had government officials committed to effective regulation been in power, both in the executive branch and in Congress. Chapter six of my book makes that case methodically, if you're interested.
Didn't you used to work for FEMA, too, or am I misremembering?
March 14, 2008 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gonzone,
First off, yes there are thoughtful free-market conservatives. People like Milton Friedman, Bill Buckley, Russell Kirk, Friedrich von Hayek, for instance. I would suggest reading "The Road to Serfdom". Even though he was writing about war-torn Europe, it is scary how much of it is still relevant today.
Second, my main point is thus: it is folly to give tremendous power to any one agency to do anything. That organization _will_ become corrupted and will no longer do the job it was intended to do. That is not a knock on the FAA specifically, it is a knock on all institutions run by human beings. So insofar as there are problems that you might claim require government regulation, the free-market conservative's response is to advocate a - surprise - free-market approach to solving the problems. In the free market, power is not concentrated in the hands of one single institution, but is distributed among many competing institutions. The free market approach also has the significant added benefit of preserving the liberty of the individual to make free choices among various options in the marketplace, and not be forced to choose among a substantially smaller subset of options chosen for him/her by a bunch of regulators. What would be a free market approach to flight safety? How about independent licensure and accreditation by private certification firms? Airlines can post publicly which certifications each airplane has received, and customers can make knowledgeable judgments about which standards are most important to them and which certification firm is making the evaluations. (Incidentally, this is not much different than how schools and universities are accredited.)
But - and I can already hear some of your objections - what if some airline pays off a firm to get a fake rating? What if some "certification" firms are full of a bunch of idiots who don't know the first thing about airplanes? My response is that these things are worked out in the marketplace. Fake firms are caught when their certifications don't stand up to scrutiny. Airline whistleblowers will discover the fraud associated with bribery. And if that's not good enough, because people's lives are still put at unnecessary risk in your view, then consider the scenario (not too far from the truth, apparently) that the FAA is corrupt. Then we are ALL screwed because there is nobody else we can turn to to certify planes to be safe.
But the point here is to take a free market approach to solve problems. The free market approach is one in which (a) individual choice is preserved, and (b) individual liberty is preserved. Having a bunch of central regulators does neither, and IMO only creates an illusion of safety while these agencies eventually become corrupted.
As to your question about outsourcing - I really have no opinion on the matter. IMO it is a symptom, not the cause, of the problem.
Finally, I don't know if there is an example of a truly free market, and I don't know if even the most strident free-market ideologue ever advocates for such a thing. We aren't a bunch of anarchists, you know. At a bare minimum, we all advocate for a robust judicial system to handle complaints. But that's not really the point anyway. The point is the approach to addressing a particular problem.
I hope I have satisfactorily addressed your questions. Now here are a few questions for you. Why do you support a regulatory approach to problems such as airline safety? Do you acknowledge that human institutions tend to become corrupt over time, and what is your suggestion to prevent this? What is your suggestion for expanding individual choice and preserving individual liberty in the context of a regulatory environment?
I await your response.
March 14, 2008 5:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
So can you show me statistically how the FAA was hamstrung 2001 - 2007 and better able to do its job 1993 - 1999?
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Of course, a lot of factors come into play beyond the FAA's capabilities in determining the numbers of accidents and fatalities. In any case, it's obvious to everyone outside of the administration that significant, growing risks have been left unaddressed and are posing increasing danger to the public as a result.
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I didn't think you could prove anything with data. "It's obvious to anyone" doesn't get you very far.
March 14, 2008 6:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Didn't you used to work for FEMA, too, or am I misremembering?
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I've worked on FEMA funded and administered contracts - good memory!! Thanks!
March 14, 2008 6:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, I was just over looking at your piece on the FDA.
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=who_strangled_the_fda
Some interesting stuff
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During the past 35 years, the decrease in FDA funding for inspection of our food supply has forced FDA to impose a 78 percent reduction in food inspections, at a time when the food industry has been rapidly expanding and food importation has exponentially increased. FDA estimates that, at most, it inspects food manufacturers once every 10 years.
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Very interesting in the most food inspection is performed by the FSIS part of the Department of Agriculture - not part of FDA at all. FDA is part of the Department of Health and Human Services
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/
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But if everyone is to blame, then no one is. Recent fiascoes like the Melamine-tainted pet food and lead-laced Mattel toys, both imported from China, are sure to continue in the absence of meaningful accountability. The truth is that the carnage described in the report is as much a conservative-movement accomplishment as the creation of the FDA was a great progressive-era triumph.
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Well, you are right that the FDA is responsible for pet food inspection - but the lead tainted toys have little or nothing to do with FDA. That's the responsibility of the Consumer Product Safety Commission - an independent agency that isn't part of HHS like FDA
http://www.cpsc.gov/about/about.html
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From 1994 to 2007, according to former FDA chief counsel Hutt, the agency's appropriated personnel declined from 9,167 to 7,856, while its funding increased by only two-thirds of the amount that would have been needed to keep up with inflation.
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http://www.fda.gov/oc/oms/annualreport/2004/apr2004.html
If you look here you'll see that Mr. Hutt is shading the truth. Look at the chart halfway down the page and it shows that the FDA has increased its FTEs by using funding from user fees to bring them up to over 10,000 by 2005, more that its total FTEs in 1992. Hutt tries to convince us that FDA's manpower is shrinking when it's really increased by 12%
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Can't you keep some of these things straight? You're blaming the FDA for things it isn't even responsible for.
March 14, 2008 9:38 PM | Reply | Permalink