Legitimate Stakeholders Get Left Out of Public Rulemaking Process.
A timely and relevant read for those of us would be small business, and academic stakeholders, as well as the public at large. It was my sincere hope that with the support and assistance of a number of members of Congress, we would be heard in what at this point can only be called an alleged “public” process. The FAA contends that manufacturers of small UAS constitute the small business people. Ludicrous is one thought that comes to mind. However, that lends too much credit to a situation that many see as some good old fashion contempt for the public process and a de facto silencing of the largest end-user stakeholder communities. The correspondence returned to our Federal representation (many published here at the sUAS News), bear witness to and buttress this view.
The attached article was originally written and published on behalf of the RCAPA membership in the UVS International’s RPAS Yearbook, The Global Perspective 2012/2013.
http://www.uvs-info.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=197&Itemid=193
Many years of promises yet we still wait for rules… Crawl, walk, run may manifest into a U.S. effort that falls on its face, passes out and dies from an acute case of ennui. This community, as well as the public at large, should be deeply concerned, as the FAA has deemed the small business and end-user stakeholder input to be irrelevant.
What a tragedy to have come all of this way, invested countless hours and effort into what has become a broken down process. Worse yet, in the end to be disenfranchised both politically and economically by the exact agency entrusted with promulgating the laws governing this stakeholder group’s economic future.
Small businesses officially requests to have their voice be part of the conversation…
The RCAPA requested that the Associate Administrator for Aviation Safety, Peggy Gilligan include small business and academic stakeholders on the current UAS ARC as full, amended charter members. The SME role is one of busy work. Members of the sUAS ARC witnessed this first hand, and in no uncertain terms, something this stakeholder group cannot afford to accept. A kick in the shins for the folks who volunteered countless hours on substantive work that was not so much as given a perfunctory glance. Running directly counter to the UAPO’s trite, “we need data and ideas” shtick. Still, nothing but moving targets on the data needed as of April 2012, and the party line is starting to go from the lovable old obtuse, to bizarre.
Adding to the narrative of obfuscation…
We are the same folks the FAA espouses accountable to in their agency mission statement. “We are accountable to the American public and our stakeholders.” It would appear, in this instance, the FAA has left some of those “stakeholders” out of their stated aspirations. We can only wonder if it is by design or could it be a beltway-augmented reality is causing collective reading comprehension issues??
A telling example of the UAPO’s (mis) management skills, we asked for the inclusion of small business representation on the current UAS ARC. They contend that there are companies on the current UAS ARC who make small UAS. I’m not sure where they lost radar contact with the issues at hand confusing small business stakeholders with manufactures of small systems. Again, the quality and breadth of their correspondence speaks for itself.
Question for Mr. John M. Allen, who is the UAS ARC small business point of contact? Are we supposed to rely on the bighearted Raytheon, or one of the two guys from General Atomics to be the advocate for small business? There is room for two representatives from one big business, but the largest potential user group by far need not apply! Public trust takes a back seat again. Shameful!
Undeterred, we will reiterate that the rights of inclusion due us in the Administrative Procedures Act. The voices of the small business, academic and end-user stakeholder demographic undoubtedly has to be included in any “public process”, be it alleged or otherwise. After all, we are the largest user group and have the most economic freedoms to lose.
Congressional oversight of the process and accountability for the mangers only receives limited bandwidth. An obvious issue in this case as so little has been published or produced in the last several years. It may be time to suggest that we seek a Congressional investigation and ensuing audit of the UAPO office. Possibly even the entire FAA’s UAS integration process from the Associate Administrator for Aviation Safety on down. There is enough documentation readily available to support an investigation into possible incongruities in the UAS rule making process.
As bad, is the prospect of haphazardly crafted regulations being rubberstamped by an administration that had to be told to stop kicking the can down the road. Only drawback is Congress did not outline a step-by-step program detailing an end to the monkeyshines, which in the end may prove to be as effective as getting a teenager to clean his room unsupervised. Raising further concerns that with hard deadlines looming we might witness a rehash of the old Hail Mary TCAS play. Even more alarming would be a veritable Mulligan stew of standards poached straight off the page of military vendor business plans. Then with straight faces, foisted upon us as the impartial and genuine article.
If this FAA run rulemaking process is a harbinger of the proposed regulations, then the unmanned aircraft sector in the U.S. stands the real chance of following many other U.S. industries… on a fast boat to China.
