ARSA Questions TSA Authority

In its comments to the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) repair station security regulations, ARSA questioned whether the agency had jurisdiction over certificate action. In its proposed rule, the TSA attempted to follow the congressional mandate to establish procedures for appealing a revocation of a certificate when the repair station posed an "immediate security risk". However, that statute does not, in ARSA’s opinion, supersede the National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) authority to review all certificate actions. The association requested the TSA to completely rewrite the compliance and enforcement subpart and to use the existing procedures in the Federal Aviation Administration regulations (14 CFR part 13) and NTSB rules (49 CFR part 831).

In addition to extensive comments on every section and paragraph of the proposed regulation, ARSA requested that the agency exempt all repair stations except those located on commercial airports or working on commercial aircraft. The Association based its recommendation on the three threat scenarios contained in the agency’s Preliminary Regulatory Evaluation, which also suggested that the rule "may" have an impact on small businesses. ARSA proposed the alternative approach to ensure that the rule would provide "security" from the most detrimental possibilities while exempting most repair stations from the regulations entirely.

ARSA's comments may be found here.