Draft FAA Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for Streamlining Launch and Reentry Regulations

After the FAA’s repeated insistence at COMSTAC last fall that it would not be sharing any drafts of its notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) for its launch and reentry regulations, guess what the FAA has done?  It’s shared a draft.

But don’t get too excited.  The FAA is not seeking comments on this draft NPRM for further revisions right now.  In other words, the FAA is not accepting comments prior to official publication. Instead, the FAA put up on its website a copy of what it sent to the Federal Register.  Sharing the publication draft prior to Federal Register publication is a new thing for the FAA to do. I am told it was the last agency in the Department of Transportation to adopt this practice, but it’s on board now.

OMB has cleared the NPRM, so the link contains what the FAA sent to the Federal Register for publication.  As the FAA states in its cover sheet:

This draft notice of proposed rulemaking is not final and may change before publication. The comment period for this rule will open once the rule publishes in the Federal Register. The FAA is not accepting comments prior to that. When published, you may find the official notice of proposed rulemaking at the Federal Register’s website.

You may ask whether it’s worth reading this draft if it could change before publication.  Yes, it is.  Do it.  Even though it is a draft, the changes the Federal Register makes before publication are editorial, not substantive.  The Register worries about such things as whether the regulatory text is punctuated and formatted properly, and whether any incorporations-by-reference are done properly.

A Head Start. The FAA’s willingness to share a copy of what it’s about to publish gives the public (that’s all of us) a head start on the comment period.  When an agency publishes an NPRM, it provides the public a set amount of time in which to submit comments.  This NPRM draft says the comment period will last 60 days.   The FAA won’t start counting those 60 days until Federal Register publication, which should be sometime in the next couple of weeks. You’ll want to take full advantage of this head start given the impressive length of the document. It’s 580 pages double-spaced.

Remember, the notice of proposed rulemaking is itself a draft of whatever final rule the FAA eventually issues.  Now’s your chance to weigh in.

Press Release.  The FAA has announced the availability of the draft NPRM, and summarizes it here.  The statement is not big on detail, but it says:

The proposed rule would provide a safe, performance-based regulatory approach to commercial space transportation. It would promote safety practices by creating flexibility for operators to meet safety requirements, and by enhancing collaboration among stakeholders. The rule would also improve efficiency by encouraging potential and current launch site and reentry operators to suggest and implement design and operation solutions.