Select Committee on South Bay Arrivals

What is it ?

From Anna Eshooo's announcement: "The Select Committee on South Bay Arrivals will accept public input, review FAA proposals, and make recommendations on issues identified in the FAA’s Initiative with a focus on arrival issues that primarily impact the South Bay Region".

It comprises 12 elected officials (plus some standby 'alternates') from across the region - full list here.

Why should I care ?

The Select Committee is meeting with the public, and has a congressional mandate to propose solutions on behalf of the whole region - so if you care about jet noise in your community, you should care about what the Select Committee is doing.

What should I know ?

A range of community advocacy groups have met with the FAA, and more recently the Select Committee, proposing a range of ways they want the problem of jet noise to be tackled. You can visit their websites to see various presentations and proposals on how to tackle jetnoise.

Important context for the Select Committee process is The FAA Initiative. The FAA was tasked by congresspeople to consider some changes.

What is the FAA Initiative ?

The FAA Initiative (now known as the NorCal Metroplex Initiative) is an ongoing project to assess the feasibility of a whole bunch of changes to flightpaths in NorCal, and started life as an early response to ideas that came from community advocacy groups. The initiative forms the only public statements made by the FAA about changes they might consider making.

On May 16th, 2016, The FAA published their interim assessment on which of the ideas from the original initiative it believes to be 'feasible'; this is an important update on the original initiative.

Different communities have different takes on what's good and bad in the FAA Initiative. You should check out what the advocacy groups near you are thinking.