Executive Summary for the Guidebook on Understanding FAA Grant Assurance Obligations (2018)

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

25 The Guidebook was developed to assist sponsors, airport staff, and other stakeholders to understand grant assurance requirements better. This improved understanding, in turn, may better enable sponsors and airport staff to avoid the consequences of noncompliance outlined in this section. Although the provisions of the grant assurances represent requirements, a sponsor volun- tarily undertakes these requirements through the execution of a grant agreement. Therefore, FAA’s preferred method to achieve compliance is through voluntary cooperation after provid- ing a sponsor guidance on what the grant assurances require and where the sponsor’s actions or policies fall short. If voluntary cooperation is not successful, FAA must complete an administra- tive process to determine whether a violation has occurred and must specify corrective actions and the consequences (sanctions) if the corrective actions are not accomplished. Even after the administrative process and a formal determination of violation, FAA will still seek to obtain vol- untary cooperation by the sponsor to achieve corrective action before imposing sanctions. As a result, a substantial period of time may pass between FAA’s first receipt of information about a possible noncompliance situation and any FAA action levying sanctions. The most common consequence, when FAA determines a sponsor to be in noncompliance, is withholding of grants or grant payments. This tool is available to FAA to address noncompliance for all 39 numbered grant assurances. In the case of project-specific requirements, the withholding may take the form of withholding a grant offer for a specific project or terminating a project. In the case of generally applicable requirements, the withholding may take the form of declaring the sponsor ineligible to receive new grants or withholding payments for reimbursement under existing grants. A civil enforcement action in U.S. district court is also available to FAA, with the concur- rence of the U.S. Department of Justice; however, this remedy is rarely used. Specific grant assurances have additional sanctions, as shown below: S e c t i o n 7 Consequences of Noncompliance • GA 1. Davis–Bacon Act – Criminal Enforcement • GA 1. Fair Labor Standards Act – Criminal Enforcement; Suspension and Debarment • GA 1. Contract Work Hours and Safety Standards Act – Criminal Enforcement • GA 1. 29 CFR Parts 1, 3, 5 – Criminal Enforcement • GA 1. 41 CFR Part 60 – Criminal Enforcement • GA 1. 49 CFR Part 20 – Civil Penalties • GA 14. Minimum Wage Rates – Criminal Enforce ment; Suspension and Debarment • GA 25. Airport Revenues – Civil Penalties, Treble Damages, Withholding of Passenger Facility Charge (PFC) Approval; Withholding of Non-AIP Grants under Title 49 of the USC