{"id":319,"date":"2017-02-17T13:24:48","date_gmt":"2017-02-17T18:24:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/groundbasedspacematters.com\/?p=319"},"modified":"2017-02-17T13:24:48","modified_gmt":"2017-02-17T18:24:48","slug":"for-whom-the-clock-starts-for-whom-it-stops-and-tolling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/groundbasedspacematters.com\/index.php\/2017\/02\/17\/for-whom-the-clock-starts-for-whom-it-stops-and-tolling\/","title":{"rendered":"For Whom the Clock Starts, For Whom it Stops, and Tolling"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When a launch or reentry operator applies for a launch or reentry license from the Federal Aviation Administration, the FAA has 180 days to determine whether to grant the license or not. This time limit comes from\u00a0 the Commercial Space Launch Act (CSLA), 51 U.S.C. ch. 509, and the FAA has to follow it. This sounds very simple, but, of course, it isn\u2019t. Because Congress did not specify how the FAA is to count the days, the FAA\u2019s regulations, which it must follow under Supreme Court case law, start and stop the clock based on whether the FAA has enough information in the application to start working on it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The clock starts<\/strong>. When does the clock start counting down? Might an applicant submit its name and address and have the clock start running? No.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/cfr\/text\/14\/413.15\">Under the FAA\u2019s rules<\/a> the clock starts when an applicant submits an accepted application.\u00a0 An accepted license application is one that is \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/cfr\/text\/14\/413.11\">complete enough for the FAA to start its review<\/a>.\u201d In other words, the applicant has to provide enough information for the FAA to <em>start<\/em> figuring out if the operator can satisfy, among other things, the FAA\u2019s safety and financial requirements. That\u2019s when the clock starts ticking.<\/p>\n<p>The FAA can afford this approach because it has the ability to \u201ctoll\u201d its review: it can stop the clock. As the regulations note, \u201c[<a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/cfr\/text\/14\/413.13\">t]he FAA\u2019s acceptance of an application does not mean it has determined that the application is complete<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>The clock stops<\/strong>. If the FAA has an application that does not contain all the necessary information, the FAA will toll the review period under section 413.15(b). To do that, the FAA writes to the applicant and requests the missing information. Although this part is not in the rules, the FAA\u2019s notification of the applicant that the agency needs more information will contain a date by which the applicant should submit the information to avoid tolling. If the applicant provides the information before that date, the clock does not stop. If the FAA does not receive the requested information, the clock stops on the specified date. For example, let\u2019s say that on Day 50 of the review period the FAA writes the applicant requesting information about an applicant\u2019s safety official because the applicant doesn\u2019t seem to have one. The FAA requests the information by April 5, which is Day 60. The applicant does not provide the information. Although the FAA may keep working on the application, it will toll the review period, and the clock doesn\u2019t start again until May 1, when the applicant finally provides the FAA the identity of its safety official.<\/p>\n<p>This system is actually a great benefit to the applicant. If tolling were unavailable, the FAA would have to deny the license application at 180 days for missing information, and the clock would reset to Day 0.<\/p>\n<p>Another interesting point is that both the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/uscode\/text\/51\/50905\">CSLA<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/cfr\/text\/14\/413.15\">FAA\u2019s regulations<\/a> state that the FAA must inform the applicant in writing of any additional information the agency needs if it hasn\u2019t made its final determination at 120 days.<\/p>\n<p>Thus we see that the FAA, in accordance with Congressional direction and expectations, structured its regulations on this topic to allow an applicant to submit an incomplete application, albeit one that is \u201ccomplete enough\u201d for the FAA to start its review. Were the FAA to change this approach it would have to change its regulations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When a launch or reentry operator applies for a launch or reentry license from the Federal Aviation Administration, the FAA&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[36,81,80],"class_list":["post-319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-faa","tag-launch-license","tag-tolling"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.9 - 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