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The FAA reauthorization bill would preserve a future for leaded gas (wapo.st)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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In particular, whatever politicians say, the Republican-controlled House has a rider in the FAA authorization bill which requires airports to continue selling leaded fuel for propeller aircraft forever:

The House version of the bill would require airports that receive federal grants to continue selling the same fuels they sold in 2018 in perpetuity.

While the Democratically-controlled Senate requires a phase-out:

The Senate version would require these airports to continue selling the same fuels they sold in 2022, with a sunset date of 2030 or whenever unleaded fuels are “widely available.”

For context, the FAA approved sale of unleaded fuel for all propeller planes last year, and there are local efforts to ban the sale of leaded fuel in locations where the unleaded fuel is now available

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Nobody wants lead in kids lungs. However, eliminating that completely eliminates a long standing privilege because there currently is no cleaner fuel. So we have three options:

ban it - kills flying those planes until an alternative fuel is produced
protect it - continues harming children at the same level and perhaps more (i.e. if it overrides local bans)
compromise - reduce flying until better fuels are produced

Both Democrats and Republicans are proposing the second option, with Democrats switching to the first after a few years. I'm proposing the third.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Last year, the FAA approved the first unleaded fuel that works for all existing small piston-driven propeller aircraft.

It's available today on a regional basis. Taking it national is basically a matter of forcing refiners to produce it (or one of the equivalents currently in development)

Reduce flying until it's more widely available would be a great move too.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Cool, so I think we should tax the use of leaded gas a lot higher than unleaded to encourage ramping up production of the new fuel. If we follow the Democrat plan, there's no real reason to ramp up production quickly, they'll just take their time.