The Federal Register provided a couple interesting space items recently. The one tells us the new amount of civil penalties (aka “fines”) the FAA may impose, and the other shares the availability of an FAA environmental assessment for the former Space Launch Facility.
Fines. I hope that very few of you know the maximum amount of civil penalty the FAA may impose for violations of the Commercial Space Launch Act or the FAA’s commercial space regulations. As required by the Federal Civil Penalties Adjustment Act Improvements Act, that amount has now gone up. Agencies must adjust their penalties for inflation. The FAA’s regulations governing civil penalties for violations of its space regulations may be found at 14 CFR part 406, and we can see that the new maximum has reached $234,247:
§ 406.9 Civil penalties.(a) Civil penalty liability. Under 51 U.S.C. 50917(c), a person found by the FAA to have violated a requirement of the Act, a regulation issued under the Act, or any term or condition of a license or permit issued or transferred under the Act, is liable to the United States for a civil penalty of not more than $234,247 for each violation. A separate violation occurs for each day the violation continues.
Because this increase is statutorily mandated and comments would have been futile, the Department of Transportation provided no comment period. The new amounts take effect November 27, 2018. Just to allay any serious panic, however, I will mention that the FAA does not usually subject first time violators to the maximum allowable penalties. Still, be careful out there.
Environmental assessment. On November 19, the FAA also announced the availability of its “Final Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impact/Record of Decision for the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) Launch Site Operator License (Final EA and FONSI/ROD).”
The Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) encompasses about 4,432 acres of property at Kennedy Space Center, including the 15,000 foot long, 300 footwide runway. The SLF, which previously supported the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Space Shuttle Program, is now a state-licensed private use airport managed by Space Florida. Under the Proposed Action described in the Final EA, Space Florida would construct launch site facilities and the FAA would issue a launch site operator license to Space Florida for the operation of a commercial space launch site at the SLF. The EA may be used to support the issuance of launch licenses or experimental permits to prospective vehicle operators that propose to conduct launches of horizontal takeoff and horizontal landing launch vehicles from the SLF. However, if a prospective launch vehicle operator’s vehicle parameters fall outside those analyzed in the EA, the FAA would re-evaluate the potential impacts and, if necessary, prepare additional NEPA analysis.