GAO: Electric Propulsion Standards Work Stalled by Bureaucracy Cuts | Aviation International News

Regulations and Government

GAO: Electric Propulsion Standards Work Stalled by Bureaucracy Cuts

ARAC purge puts 2027 rulemaking deadline at risk

A GAO illustration depicts potential uses for electric aircraft, including air taxi service, regional air service, cargo transport, and flight training.

By Hanneke Weitering • Science & Technology Editor

May 28, 2026

A May 2027 statutory deadline for updating airworthiness standards for electric aircraft engines is in jeopardy after the Trump Administration’s drive to reduce the federal bureaucracy sidelined the advisory body Congress tasked with the work, a government watchdog reported on Wednesday.

In a report mandated by Section 1012 of the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the FAA cannot act on a separate provision of the same law, Section 956, requiring it to modernize airworthiness standards for electric and hybrid-electric engines and propellers. The FAA had planned to task the Aviation Rulemaking Advisory Committee (ARAC) with that work, but the committee lost its members in August 2025 as part of a government-wide effort to dissolve and reconstitute federal advisory committees under a Trump administration executive order targeting what the White House described as “unnecessary bureaucracy.”

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