[Federal Register Volume 79, Number 217 (Monday, November 10, 2014)]
[Notices]
[Pages 66763-66765]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2014-26668]
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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Federal Aviation Administration
DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR
National Park Service
[Docket No. FAA-2014-0782]
Grand Canyon National Park Quiet Aircraft Technology Incentive:
Seasonal Relief From Allocations in the Dragon and Zuni Point Corridors
Authority: Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act,
Sec. 35001, Public Law 112-141, 126 Stat. 843; National Parks Air
Tour Management Act, Sec. 804, Public Law 106-181, 114 Stat. 192.
AGENCY: Federal Aviation Administration, Transportation; National Park
Service, Interior.
ACTION: Notice and request for public comment.
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SUMMARY: The Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21)
in section 35001(b)(2) directs the Administrator of the Federal
Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Secretary of the Interior to
provide quiet aircraft technology incentives for commercial air tour
operators at Grand Canyon National Park. The FAA and the National Park
Service (NPS) propose to implement this directive by giving effect to
section 804(c) of the National Parks Air Tour Management Act (NPATMA)
to provide seasonal relief from allocations in the Dragon and Zuni
Point corridors for commercial air tour operators that convert or have
converted to quiet aircraft technology. The FAA and the NPS will ensure
that seasonal relief from allocations complies with statutory
conditions that the cumulative impact of such operations does not
increase noise at the Grand Canyon and that this incentive does not
diminish the statutory mandate to achieve the substantial restoration
of natural quiet. This incentive is proposed to be made available in
the Dragon and Zuni Point corridors during the first quarter (January-
March) beginning in 2015, may be extended to include part or all of the
fourth quarter beginning in 2016, and will remain in effect unless it
violates the statutory conditions or until a longer term approach for
managing air tour noise is in place.
DATES: Send comments on or before December 10, 2014.
ADDRESSES: Send comments identified by docket number FAA-2014-0782
using any of the following methods:
Federal eRulemaking Portal: Go to http://www.regulations.gov and follow the online instructions for sending your
comments electronically.
Mail: Send comments to Docket Operations, M-30; U.S.
Department of Transportation (DOT), 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE., Room
W12-140, West Building Ground Floor, Washington, DC 20590-0001.
Hand Delivery or Courier: Take comments to Docket
Operations in Room W12-140 of the West Building Ground Floor at 1200
New Jersey Avenue SE., Washington, DC, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.,
Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays.
Fax: Fax comments to Docket Operations at 202-493-2251.
Privacy: All comments received will be posted, without change, to
http://www.regulations.gov, including any personal information the
commenter provides. Using the search function of the docket Web site,
anyone can find and read the electronic form of all comments received
into any docket, including the name of the individual sending the
comment (or signing the
[[Page 66764]]
comment for an association, business, labor union, etc.). DOT's
complete Privacy Act Statement can be found in the Federal Register
published on April 11, 2000 (65 FR 19477-19478), as well as at http://DocketsInfo.dot.gov.
Docket: Background documents or comments received may be read at
http://www.regulations.gov at any time. Follow the online instructions
for accessing the docket or go to the Docket Operations in Room W12-140
of the West Building Ground Floor at 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE.,
Washington, DC, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday,
except Federal holidays.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Keith Lusk, Program Manager, Federal Aviation Administration, P.O. Box
92007, Los Angeles, California 90009-2007; telephone (310) 725-3808;
email [email protected]
Robin Martin, Chief, Office of Planning and Compliance, Grand Canyon
National Park, P.O. Box 129, Grand Canyon, Arizona 86023-0129;
telephone (928) 638-7684; email [email protected]
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Authority
1. The National Park Overflights Act of 1987, Public Law 100-91,
directed the Secretary of the Interior and the Administrator of the FAA
to take actions to provide for the substantial restoration of the
natural quiet and experience of Grand Canyon National Park and the
protection of public health and safety from adverse effects associated
with aircraft overflight. As part of these actions, operational limits
for commercial air tour operations at Grand Canyon National Park (the
park) were imposed by FAA regulations at 14 CFR part 93 issued on April
4, 2000. With some exceptions not relevant to this notice, these
regulations establish an allocation scheme for the park, require
commercial air tour operators to use one allocation for each flight
that is a commercial air tour, and prohibit operators from conducting
more commercial air tours in any calendar year than the number of
allocations specified on the certificate holder's operations
specifications issued by the FAA. 14 CFR 93.319. These regulations also
define and describe quiet aircraft technology (QT). 14 CFR 93.303 and
appendix A to subpart U of part 93.
2. The National Parks Air Tour Management Act (NPATMA), Public Law
106-181, was signed into law on April 5, 2000. Under section 804(c),
commercial air tour operations by any fixed-wing or helicopter aircraft
that employs QT and that replaces an existing aircraft are not subject
to the operational flight allocations that apply to other commercial
air tour operations at the park, provided that the cumulative impact of
such operations does not increase noise at the Grand Canyon. Section
804(d) provides that a commercial air tour operation by an aircraft in
a commercial air tour operator's fleet on the date of enactment of
NPATMA that meets QT requirements or is subsequently modified to meet
QT requirements may be used for commercial air tour operations under
the same terms and conditions as section 804(c) without regard to
whether it replaces an existing aircraft. In addition, NPATMA expressly
states that it does not relieve or diminish the statutory mandate to
achieve substantial restoration of natural quiet and experience at the
park.
3. Section 35001 of the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st
Century Act (MAP-21), Public Law 112-141, July 6, 2012, directs the
Secretary of the Interior and the Administrator of the Federal Aviation
Administration to provide incentives for commercial air tour operators
that convert to QT, determined in accordance with the regulations then
in effect. MAP-21 gives as an example of an incentive increasing the
flight allocations for operators of QT on a net basis consistent with
section 804(c) of NPATMA, provided that the cumulative impact of such
operations does not increase noise at the Grand Canyon.
II. Current QT Incentives
This proposed incentive is one of several that the FAA and the NPS
are providing for operators that convert or have converted to QT to
encourage greater use of QT. The NPS, in consultation with the FAA,
reduced the fees applicable to commercial air tour operations at the
Grand Canyon by 20 percent (from $25 to $20 per flight) for an air tour
using QT. This fee reduction went into effect on January 1, 2014.
On February 3, 2014, the FAA, in consultation with the NPS,
announced its intention to distribute FAA-held allocations to
commercial tour operators in proportion to the number of QT operations
flown in the first six months of 2014. 79 FR 6267. These allocations
are to be used for QT flights during the 2014 air tour season and
beyond.
III. Seasonal Relief From Allocations for QT in the Dragon and Zuni
Point Corridors
The FAA and the NPS propose to provide an additional QT incentive
in the Dragon and Zuni Point corridors where QT can have the greatest
positive effect on park resources and where the need for relief from
allocations has been demonstrated. Under this proposed incentive,
commercial air tour operators flying QT aircraft in the Dragon and Zuni
Point corridors will initially be relieved from having such operations
count against their annual allocations in the first quarter (January 1-
March 31) of 2015. During this first quarter, QT flights will not use
an allocation, while non-QT flights must still use an allocation. All
commercial air tour flights, QT and non-QT, must use an allocation for
the remainder of the year (April 1-December 31). However, operators
will continue to benefit from the seasonal relief since they may use
allocations in April through December that would otherwise have been
used for QT flights conducted in January through March.
The first quarter of the calendar year has historically had the
lowest level of commercial air tour operations. Providing this
incentive initially in the first quarter of 2015 is a prudent action
that gives the FAA and the NPS an opportunity to evaluate the impact of
the incentive, including the extent to which commercial air tour
operators continue to use QT in the remainder of the year, which will
produce additional noise benefits for the park. The FAA and the NPS
want to incentivize commercial air tour operators to maximize the use
of QT throughout the year. To that end, the seasonal relief from
allocations may be extended to part or all of the fourth quarter
(October 1-December 31) in 2016 and following years, in addition to the
first quarter, based on an evaluation of the preceding year. In 2015,
the more that increased QT use reduces the noise level below the noise
baseline described in the following paragraph, the greater the prospect
for operators to have additional seasonal relief from allocations in
2016.
To meet the statutory conditions in NPATMA and MAP-21, the FAA and
the NPS must ensure that the cumulative impact of QT operations
relieved from allocations does not increase noise at the park. For this
proposed seasonal relief incentive, this means that the annual noise
from both QT and non-QT commercial air tour flights conducted in the
Dragon and Zuni Point corridors must not exceed the annual noise level
of commercial air tour flights in these corridors under the current
allocation system. The FAA and the NPS have modeled the noise of
commercial air tour allocations in the Dragon and Zuni Point corridors
as flown with the 2012 commercial air tour fleet mix and route
structure--resulting
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in a noise baseline of LEQ12 58.1 dB.\1\ To determine if
there is an increase in noise associated with this incentive, the FAA
and the NPS will model the annual noise from all commercial air tour
operations conducted in the Dragon and Zuni Point corridors and compare
the annual noise with the seasonal relief incentive in place with the
noise baseline of all commercial air tour allocations in these
corridors. Noise will be determined to increase if the annual modeled
LEQ12 noise of commercial air tour operations in the Dragon
and Zuni Point corridors exceeds LEQ12 58.1 dB. If noise in
any year exceeds the noise baseline, the seasonal relief incentive will
be modified or discontinued as determined necessary to comply with the
statutory condition.
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\1\ LEQ12 stands for Equivalent Sound Level for 12
hours, which is a cumulative measure of the noise exposure of A-
weighted sound levels over a 12-hour period. For this purpose, the
LEQ was calculated annually and averaged over the park to get a
single LEQ12 value.
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To ensure that this incentive will not diminish the achievement of
substantial restoration of natural quiet and experience at the park,
all commercial air tour aircraft including QT must adhere to the
existing route structure throughout the park, including the Dragon and
Zuni Point corridors.
This incentive applies only to commercial air tour operators that
currently have allocations in the Dragon and Zuni Point corridors;
i.e., operators must have allocations in these corridors in order to be
relieved from allocations. It does not apply elsewhere in the Grand
Canyon Special Flight Rules Area (SFRA). There is an ample unused
surplus of commercial air tour allocations in the SFRA outside of the
Dragon and Zuni Point corridors; therefore, operators conducting air
tours in these other SFRA areas do not need relief from allocations and
would not be incentivized to convert to QT by a seasonal relief
incentive.
If the seasonal relief in the Dragon and Zuni Point corridors is a
successful QT incentive, it is proposed to remain in effect unless it
violates the statutory condition that the cumulative effect of such
operations must not increase noise at the Grand Canyon or diminishes
the achievement of substantial restoration of natural quiet, in which
case it will be either modified or discontinued; or until a longer term
approach for managing air tour noise in the park is in place.
The FAA and the NPS commit to developing a long term approach for
managing noise in the park in an expeditious manner. Any long term
approach will continue to incentivize conversion to QT and will not
penalize earlier conversion to QT realized through the seasonal relief
incentive.
IV. Implementation Steps
All comments on this proposed incentive will be considered and will
inform the agencies' next steps. If the agencies proceed with the
seasonal relief incentive as proposed in this notice or as modified in
response to comments, the FAA will implement the incentive by amending
the operations specifications of commercial air tour operators holding
allocations in the Dragon and Zuni Point corridors to allow them to
conduct air tours with QT aircraft without using an allocation for such
tours in the specified seasonal time periods. The FAA and the NPS will
cooperatively ensure that the statutory conditions protecting the park
are met.
V. Environmental Considerations
This action involving the FAA's amendment of operations
specifications is categorically excluded from more detailed
environmental review because it would not have a significant effect on
the environment. The FAA and the NPS have designed this incentive to
ensure compliance with the statutory conditions that the cumulative
impact of QT operating without allocations does not increase noise and
that the incentive does not diminish the statutory mandate to achieve
the substantial restoration of natural quiet at the park.
Issued in Hawthorne, CA, on October 7, 2014.
Glen A. Martin,
Regional Administrator, Western-Pacific Region, Federal Aviation
Administration.
Issued in Lakewood, CO, on October 16, 2014.
Sue E. Masica,
Regional Director, Intermountain Region, National Park Service.
[FR Doc. 2014-26668 Filed 11-7-14; 8:45 am]
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