General aviation, which includes all aviation other than military and scheduled airline operations, is a uniquely efficient means of moving people and goods between thousands of communities nationwide. It creates jobs, increases productivity, and provides life-saving services.
Unveiled by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in October 2008, the Large Aircraft Security Program (LASP) would govern operations for all aircraft weighing more than 12,500 pounds and require operators of those aircraft to implement an approved security program. The LASP proposal would, for the first time ever, require security programs for thousands of privately operated general aviation aircraft and ultimately seek to combine a number of security programs currently in place for general aviation, including the Twelve-Five Standard Security Program (TFSSP), into a single, uniform program.
The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) is an international member organization whose mission is to reduce the worldwide burden of fire and other hazards by providing and advocating consensus codes and standards, research, training, and education. The NFPA has over 80,000 members from 80 different countries. The NFPA currently develops, publishes and updates over three hundred standards and codes designed to reduce the potential of fire and minimize the damage done by fire in a wide variety of environments.
Federal regulations give the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) the power to issue Security Directives (SD) in response to threats against civil aviation. These SDs prescribe procedural or policy changes designed to address the specific nature of the threat, and differ from typical federal rulemaking in that they can be issued with no public notice, comment or cost-benefit analysis. In fact, SDs are typically considered Sensitive Security Information, thus limiting their distribution to directly regulated entities and/or individuals that the TSA determines have a “need to know.” In December 2008, the TSA issued an SD to the directors of airports serving commercial air carriers. This SD mandated changes to the issuance of airport identification media and expanded the base of individuals who would be required to obtain airport identifications.