What is the process to contest a local FAA (FSDO) policy which appears to contradict their guidance?

Question

As the title asks, what is the formal process to contest a local FSDO policy which appears to contradict a FAR or FSIMS (8900.1) guidance?

I have already sent an email asking them to reconsider, to which the inspector reviewed the request with his front line manager and said that they were not going to change it (in spite of what I feel is clear guidance to the contrary).

I then asked for the policy to be reviewed by the local FSDO manager who would be in a position to change it, who also said that the policy would not be changed.

What is the next step? Elevate it to regional/national? I remember reading about a formal process where you make a request, and if it gets denied you have 30 days in which to ask for it to be elevated to the next level, but I don't know where I saw that.

Answer 1

The FAA Hierarchy is your typical government bureaucracy - you can escalate your way through it like most others:

• Local Level
  Your point of contact for all things FAA will typically be a local district office -- for most things you would start with the Flight Standards District Office (FSDO) unless you know specifically that your issue falls into the domain of another office (like Aircraft Certification or Manufacturing).
  If you can't work out the issue with the local folks at your FSDO you can try moving laterally and contacting someone from the FAA Safety Team at the FSDO (they may not be able to change anything, but they may be able to help get you a better explanation of why things are being interpreted the way they are, and give you a voice on the inside).

• Regional Level
  Each district office is contained within a region, and each region has a regional administrator. The regional administrator's office would be your next point of escalation. As with the District Offices contact information is available on the FAA website, and if you are able to convince the regional administrator's office that the district office has made an error and their interpretation is inconsistent with published FAA guidance you may be able to get the local interpretation overruled.

• National Level
  Your next step would be the appropriate FAA Headquarters office -- for most stuff it would be the Aviation Safety office (AVS), and as mins pointed out you probably want to avail yourself of the Consistency and Standardization Initiative which exists to bring some standardization to what has traditionally been the the inside joke of "There's nothing standard about Flight Standards!" -- If a local FSDO is operating contrary to published guidance in FSMIS or an Advisory Circular these folks can set them right. There are separate national offices that deal with Air Traffic and Airports which may also be useful contacts if you have incidents with those divisions.

• The Big Legal Hammer
  When all else fails and you need a legal interpretation to tell the entire FAA "This is what the language in 14CFR means, and this is how it must be interpreted." your point of contact is The Office of the Chief Counsel.
  These are the folks you contact if you have a specific question about how to interpret the FARs that you can't answer concretely from an Advisory Circular, or when you have contradictory interpretations from different parts of the FAA (dueling FSDOs) that you can't resolve through the other channels.
  An interpretation by the counsel's office is binding on the entire FAA organization, and as you climb the ladder there's an increasing chance that the folks you talk to will involve the lawyers at the counsel's office.

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In practice the regional level is often skipped - particularly given the Consistency and Standardization Initiative at the national level: It is often more efficient to escalate directly to a group solely charged with making sure the national standards are consistently applied.

As you climb the bureaucratic ladder the chances of someone involving the FAA's lawyers for a final legal interpretation increases: a motivated employee who thinks they're right may refer the matter to the counsel's office and copy you on the request (or you could get fed up and do the same).

Once you reach the point of an interpretation from the Office of the Chief Counsel you've climbed as high in the bureaucracy as you can - an unfavorable interpretation by the FAA lawyers can only be challenged by bringing in lawyers of your own and hashing it out in court.
Because the US court system has a long established practice of deference to agency interpretation of their own regulations the chances of winning such a case are not good unless the interpretation of the agency is entirely unreasonable or the application can be proven "arbitrary and capricious" based on other similar cases.

Answer 2

If you want to force a policy change, write directly to FAA Chief Councel. If CC writes an opinion that aligns to your position then the FSDO really can't have their own opinion. If, however, CC disagrees with you then you're sunk unless you want to take it to court.