ASA Opposes Government Penalties on Unintentional Mistakes, Because the Penalties Would Discourage Correction

FAA has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on False Statements. The rule proposes to merge all of the FAA’s false statements rules into two locations (Part 3 and a new Part 402). It also proposed some new standards that would apply to unintentional mistakes and to omissions.

ASA filed comments in response to the NPRM today. The comments made recommendations about how to make the NPRM a stronger proposal.

In summary:

• ASA supported the efforts to standardize and harmonize the false statements rules.
• ASA opposed a proposal to create a strict liability offense for unintentional mistakes in documents, because it conflicts with the FAA’s just culture environment and it could have the unintended consequence of discouraging correction of such errors.
• ASA opposed a proposal to penalize certain omissions, because of the lack of specificity about what reflects a material fact that might be omitted (especially in the specific context of the 8130-3 tag) and because the omissions provision appears to violate the Paperwork Reduction Act.
• ASA also recommended word changes to strengthen the proposal by better aligning it with existing regulations and statutes.

You can find ASA’s comments online.