When the FAA decides, for some reason, that it wants to change some part of the FARs, it first issues a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM). This is an official notification that changes are being considered. A comment period then follows, during which the public has the opportunity to submit written responses to the proposed amendments. The FAA may decide to issue an additional notice, extending the comment period, if it determines that there is a need to do so. Though pilots can learn about NPRMs through FAA direct mailings or other print or electronic media, the official source of these notices is the Federal Register, a print publication that I discuss in the Primary Sources of Law section.
One example of a NPRM is the one in 1981, which ultimately led to the reformulation of Part 91 of the FARs (found at 54 FR 34292), which is still in effect today for many sections of that Part. The changes that took effect were the result of a petition in 1978 by the AOPA. As a result of that petition, the FAA issued a preliminary notice called an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (APRM) on January 11, 1979 (APRM No. 79-2, found at 44 FR 4572), which was a verbatim copy of the AOPA proposal. As a result of numerous negative comments from the public, the FAA decided not to take the amendment process any further, and the AOPA withdrew its petition.
An FAA Working Group decided soon after this, however, that changes similar to those proposed by the AOPA were in order. It then issued an (NPRM No. 79-2A, found at 46 FR 45256) on September 10, 1981. A comment period followed, and the FAA then published further notice on December 10, 1981 (Notice No. 79-2B found at 46 FR 60461) to extend the comment period for the original notice (Notice No. 79-2A) by 120 days in response to a petition from the National Business Aircraft Association to allow additional time for commenters to prepare substantive comments.
After this period, the FAA issued yet another notice (Notice 79-2C), which proposed the following four substantive changes in addition to the numerous changes made to reorganize and clarify existing rules (two of the changes were made in response public comments):
Please note: These changes are only listed to give an idea of the amendment process. In order to ensure that they are still in effect, the reader will need to update them or arrange for a legal professional to do so.
The Chief Counsel for the FAA also issues what are called Notices of Legal Opinion (also found in the Federal Register), which give thorough responses to legal issues that arise. The Administration issued such a notice related to the set of changes currently under discussion (found at 53 FR 50208), which explains that the FAA did not adopt changes proposed by the public to international operation of aircraft without an official registration certificate, because such a change would be counter to an international convention signed by the U.S.