49 U.S.C. § 44723

Not later than January 1 of each year, the Secretary of Transportation shall submit to Congress a comprehensive report on the safety enforcement activities of the Federal Aviation Administration during the fiscal year ending the prior September 30th. The report shall include— (1) a comparison of end-of-year staffing levels by operations, maintenance, and avionics inspector categories to staffing goals and a statement on how staffing standards were applied to make allocations between air carrier and general aviation operations, maintenance, and avionics inspectors; (2) schedules showing the range of inspector experience by various inspector work force categories, and the number of inspectors in each of the categories who are considered fully qualified; (3) schedules showing the number and percentage of inspectors who have received mandatory training by individual course, and the number of inspectors by work force categories, who have received all mandatory training; (4) a description of the criteria used to set annual work programs, an explanation of how these criteria differ from criteria used in the prior fiscal year and how the annual work programs ensure compliance with appropriate regulations and safe operating practices; (5) a comparison of actual inspections performed during the fiscal year to the annual work programs by field location and, for any field location completing less than 80 percent of its planned number of inspections, an explanation of why annual work program plans were not met; (6) a statement of the adequacy of Administration internal management controls available to ensure that field managers comply with Administration policies and procedures, including those on inspector priorities, district office coordination, minimum inspection standards, and inspection followup; (7) the status of efforts made by the Administration to update inspector guidance documents and regulations to include technological, management, and structural changes taking place in the aviation industry, including a listing of the backlog of all proposed regulatory amendments; (8) a list of the specific operational measures of effectiveness used to evaluate— (A) the progress in meeting program objectives; (B) the quality of program delivery; and (C) the nature of emerging safety problems; (9) a schedule showing the number of civil penalty cases closed during the 2 prior fiscal years, including the total initial and final penalties imposed, the total number of dollars collected, the range of dollar amounts collected, the average case processing time, and the range of case processing time; (10) a schedule showing the number of enforcement actions taken (except civil penalties) during the 2 prior fiscal years, including the total number of violations cited, and the number of cited violation cases closed by certificate suspensions, certificate revocations, warnings, and no action taken; and (11) schedules showing the safety record of the aviation industry during the fiscal year for air carriers and general aviation, including— (A) the number of inspections performed when deficiencies were identified compared with inspections when no deficiencies were found; (B) the frequency of safety deficiencies for each air carrier; and (C) an analysis based on data of the general status of air carrier and general aviation compliance with aviation regulations.