Section 163 of the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 regulates the uses of properties acquired by airport sponsors using FAA funds. These include property buyouts for noise mitigation and other non-aeronautical uses. SEC. 163. LIMITED REGULATION OF NON-FEDERALLY SPONSORED PROPERTY. (a) <> In General.–Except as provided in subsection (b), the Secretary of Transportation may not
All that matters are the votes…
We never wish to embarrass current or recent electeds. But facts are facts. When it comes to aviation, no member of any Washington delegation, Federal or State, House or Senate, votes against the airline industry. They write letters. They propose various regulatory bits that have no chance at passage. But every vote that has made
Elon Musk is just saying what everyone in tech always thought
Last week the world’s richest man, once again, let his Id do the talking. And as so often happens, he was simply saying what his peers feel but are constrained from saying openly by ‘political correctness’. It should be a wake-up call for everyone who thinks that there is a ‘new normal’ of Remote Work
Port Dracula
By virtue of its unique status as a Port District under RCW 53, and the owner and operator of a Class I Airport, the Port of Seattle has a set of financial powers unlike any other regional government. And it has learned to wield these strategically to sell a variety of policies to the entire
PSCAA Community Engagement Workshop
I attended a Community Engagement Workshop hosted by Puget Sound Clean Air Agency (PSCAA.) Long story short, they’re a creation of the State and kinda/sorta act as a local arm of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). They monitor air quality according to EPA standards and have (limited) enforcement authority for King, Snohomish, Pierce and Kitsap
Annual Operations and Passengers
Operations 1961-2022 Air carrier: Scheduled aircraft operation with over 70 seats Air Taxi: Scheduled aircraft operation with less than 70 seats Source: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Passengers 1961-2022
Just Five Percent
As we previously wrote, the single biggest thing we as airport community activists could do to reduce the noise and pollution would be to encourage Remote Work. We at SeatacNoise.Info have been puzzled for a while now why this hasn’t been a part of the discussion in either airport communities or climate change activists. We
Just keep doing what you’re doing
There was a longstanding joke in the software biz: ‘the remote revolution is just around the corner!’ The irony was that, despite the fact that remote work was tailor-made for the industry, the software business was the last place such a revolution would ever happen. Managers were very straightforward: they wanted their employees in the
A letter to Representative Adam Smith: Conservation
Representative Smith, I had a conversation yesterday with your wonderful aide ███████████████████. I mentioned the idea of bringing ‘conservation’ into the discussion of air travel and she must have thought I was nuts. It is hard to explain to younger people how much Americans used to glamourise cars. The idea that we might ever feel
A letter to the Commissioners of the Port of Seattle re. the SAMP and COVID-19
Commissioners, After many years of preparation, the Sustainable Airport Master Plan (SAMP) will finally swing into gear this summer. For me, there is an eerie resemblance between today and the last expansion at Sea-Tac Airport–the Third Runway. As you know, the Port was granted permission to begin construction of the Third Runway in 1996 based