The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) https://www.faa.gov/ is a the U.S. Dept. of Transportation agency responsible for regulating U.S. civilian aviation. Governmental regulation of civilian aviation began with the 1926 Air Commerce Act directing the Commerce Department to promote air commerce, enforce traffic rules, license pilots, and other related factors. In 1958 the Federal Aviation Agency was established as a new regulatory agency outside the Commerce Department. During the Johnson Administration concern arose over the absence of a coordinated civil air transportation system and Congress created the Department of Transportation in 1966 with the FAA beginning operations on April 1, 1967.

Laws governing the FAA began at 49 USC 106 https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-1999-title49-section106&num=0&edition=1999 and the regulations governing this agency are in Title 14 https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14 of the Code of Federal Regulations. FAA regulatory activities now extend to the commercial space industry with information on this available at https://www.faa.gov/space.

Indiana’s congressional delegation during the 118th Congress is potentially influential in aviation policymaking. The House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee’s Aviation Subcommittee https://transportation.house.gov/subcommittees/subcommittee/?ID=107417 membership includes Reps. Andre Carson and Rudy Yakym with Yakym being the Vice-Chair of this subcommittee. Senator Todd Young is a member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee’s Subcommittee on Aviation Safety, Operations, and Innovation.

This blog post was written by Bert Chapman, Purdue University.