Regulatory Updates to BasicMed

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Parts 11, 61, 68, and 91</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2024-2580; Amdt. Nos. 11-70, 61-158, 68-3, and 91-380]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AM06</RIN> <SUBJECT>Regulatory Updates to BasicMed</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This final rule implements, without interpretation, the provisions of sections 815 and 828 of the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 (“the Act”). To conform the FAA's regulations to the self-enacting provisions in the Act, this final rule amends certain regulations to: align aircraft conditions and limitations with the term “covered aircraft” as defined in section 2307(j) of the FAA Extension, Safety, and Security Act of 2016 to increase the number of allowable passengers from 5 to 6, increase the number of occupants from 6 to 7, and increase the maximum takeoff weight from 6,000 pounds to 12,500 pounds, while excluding certain transport category rotorcraft. This final rule facilitates updates to current standards the medical form a State-licensed physician uses in completing a comprehensive medical examination. Further, this final rule amends regulations to incorporate the statutory expansion of BasicMed medical eligibility to examiners conducting practical tests or proficiency checks if they meet the requirements for operating covered aircraft under BasicMed, as provided in the Act. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective on November 18, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> For information on where to obtain copies of rulemaking documents and other information related to this final rule, see “How to Obtain Additional Information” in the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section of this document. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Bradley C. Zeigler, Federal Aviation Administration, 800 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20591; telephone: (202) 267-1100; email: <E T="03">Bradley.C.Zeigler@faa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Executive Summary</HD> On May 16, 2024, the President signed into law the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 (Pub. L. 118-63) (“the Act”), impacting certain requirements for BasicMed in section 815, BasicMed for Examiners Administering Tests or Proficiency Checks, and section 828, Expansion of BasicMed. Specifically, section 815 expanded the privileges of BasicMed to examiners and section 828 amended provisions in section 2307 of the FAA Extension, Safety, and Security Act of 2016 (49 U.S.C. 44703 note) (FESSA) directly applicable to BasicMed. The Act also directed the Administrator of the FAA to implement the amendments made in sections 815 and 828 through rulemaking. Section 828 further provides that the Administrator of the FAA shall update regulations in 14 CFR parts 61 and 68 to implement the amendments made in the Act ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> the updated statutory language in FESSA), and within 180 days of the enactment, apply parts 61 and 68 to ensure that an individual may operate as pilot in command of a covered aircraft if the provisions of section 2307 of FESSA are met. The amendments to parts 61 and 68 in this final rule align with the statutory charge set forth by section 828  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> in the following manner: <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  See sec. 828(a). </FTNT> • Increase the number of allowable passengers from 5 to 6 and occupants from 6 to 7 for covered aircraft; • Increase the maximum takeoff weight from 6,000 pounds to 12,500 pounds for covered aircraft; • Clarify that calendar months will be used in determining the duration of the comprehensive medical examination for those persons acting as the pilot in command or as a required flightcrew member for operations under § 61.113(i); • Specify that covered aircraft does not include transport category rotorcraft certified to airworthiness standards under part 29; and • Clarify which versions of FAA Form 8500-8, Application for Airman Medical Certificate, may be used to populate the questions in the BasicMed Comprehensive Medical Examination Checklist. Section 815, BasicMed For Examiners Administering Tests or Proficiency Checks, provides that an examiner may administer a practical test or proficiency check if such examiner meets the medical eligibility requirements for BasicMed and the flight is conducted in a covered aircraft. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> While the FAA finds the expansion to be self-enacting, the section provided the FAA with three years to issue a final rule updating the regulations, as well as any related requirements the Administrator finds are in the interest of aviation safety. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> This final rule will, therefore, update § 61.23 to permit persons performing the duties of an examiner to administer a practical test or proficiency check without holding a medical certificate issued under part 67, provided those persons meet the requirements to operate under the conditions and limitations set forth in § 61.113(i). <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  Sec. 815(a). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  Sec. 815(b). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Summary of the Costs and Benefits</HD> There are no costs or benefits of this rule relative to the with-statute baseline. This rule conforms FAA regulations to self-implementing legislation in sections 815 and 828 of the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024. Under the updated Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-4 guidance, <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> an agency may use a with-statute baseline for estimating costs and benefits for regulations that simply restate statutory requirements in self-implementing legislation. Since the rule does not deviate from the self-implementing statutory provisions, there are no costs or benefits as measured against the with-statute baseline. <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  OMB Circular No. A-4 updated November 9, 2023, page 12. Accessed September 30, 2024 at: <E T="03">https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/CircularA-4.pdf.</E> </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Authority for This Rulemaking</HD> The FAA's authority to issue rules on aviation safety is found in Title 49 of the United States Code (49 U.S.C.). Subtitle I, section 106 describes the authority of the FAA Administrator. Subtitle VII, Aviation Programs, describes in more detail the scope of the agency's authority. This final rule is promulgated under the authority described in subtitle VII, part A, subpart iii, section 44701, General Requirements; section 44702, Issuance of Certificates; and section 44703, Airman Certificates. Under these sections, the FAA is charged with prescribing regulations and minimum standards for practices, methods, and procedures the Administrator finds necessary for safety in air commerce. The FAA is also authorized to issue certificates, including airman certificates and medical certificates, to qualified individuals. This final rule is within the scope of that authority. BasicMed provisions were originally promulgated under section 2307 of Public Law 114-190, the FAA Extension, Safety and Security Act of 2016. The requirements of this rule continue to be within that authority, as well as under sections 815 and 828 of the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Good Cause for Immediate Adoption</HD> The Administrative Procedure Act (5 U.S.C. 553(b)(B)) requires an agency to conduct notice and comment rulemaking except when the agency for good cause finds (and incorporates the finding and a brief statement of reasons therefor in the rules issued) that notice and public procedure thereon are impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest. Additionally, section 553(d) permits agencies, upon a finding of good cause, to issue rules with an effective date less than 30 days from the date of publication. The FAA finds good cause to forgo notice and opportunity for comment and the 30 days notice requirement to implement the statutory amendments as a final rule. First, as it pertains to section 815, the FAA finds that notice and the opportunity for comment to be unnecessary because the final rule implements the statutory provisions without interpretation. The declaratory provision of section 815(a) became effective on May 16, 2024, immediately upon passage of the Act. While section 815(b) provided three years to conform the regulations with the self-enacting provision, the FAA has simply adopted the statutory language without interpretation and implements that language directly into the regulations, rendering notice and the opportunity for comment unnecessary. Second, as it pertains to section 828, by effect of section 828(c), which directs the Administrator to “apply parts 61 and 68, Code of Federal Regulations, in a manner reflecting the amendments made by this section,” the FAA must implement the provisions of section 828(a) beginning 180 days after passage of the Act ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> November 12, 2024). Notice and the opportunity for comment are unnecessary in this action because the FAA is strictly implementing the amendments made to the statutory provisions in section 2307 of FESSA without interpretation. This rule conforms parts 61, 68, and 91 to the specific amended provisions within the Act. Additionally, because the FAA is simply amending the regulations to the language in section 2307 of FESSA, the updated regulations do not impose any additional substantive restrictions or requirements on the persons affected by these regulations. Further, case law supports the concept that the FAA's compliance to implement a rule by the statutorily prescribed deadline of November 12, 2024, makes complia ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 47k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━