49 U.S.C. § 45303 — Administrative provisions

(a) Fees payable to the Administrator. All fees imposed and amounts collected under this chapter for services performed or materials furnished by the Federal Aviation Administration are payable to the FAA Administrator.

(b) Refunds. The Administrator may refund a fee paid by mistake or an amount paid in excess of what was required.

(c) Receipts credited to an account. Despite section 3302 of title 31, all fees and amounts collected by the Administration must be credited to a separate Treasury account for Administration activities, must be available immediately for expenditure only for purposes Congress authorized and intended, and must remain available until spent. This does not include insurance premiums and other fees charged for insurance and deposited in the Aviation Insurance Revolving Fund, interest earned on that Fund's investments, or amounts that on September 30, 1996, were required to be credited to the Treasury's general fund, whether imposed under this section or not.

(d) Annual budget report by the Administrator. On the same day each year that the President submits the annual budget to Congress, the Administrator must provide the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure with: (1) a list of the Administration's fee collections during the previous fiscal year; (2) a list of the Administration's activities during that year supported by fee spending and appropriations; (3) budget plans for significant programs, projects, and activities, including estimates of funding needed in later years; (4) any proposed disposition of surplus fees; and (5) any other information those committees consider necessary.

(e) Development of a cost-accounting system. The Administration must develop a cost-accounting system that adequately and accurately reflects its investments, operating and overhead costs, revenues, and other financial measurement and reporting aspects of its operations.

(f) Compensation to carriers acting as collection agents. The Administration must issue regulations ensuring that an air carrier required under the Air Traffic Management System Performance Improvement Act of 1996, or an amendment made by that Act, to collect a fee imposed on another party by the Administrator may collect an additional uniform amount from that party. The amount must reflect the necessary and reasonable costs of collecting and handling the fee, minus interest accruing to the carrier after collection and before it sends the money to the Administrator.

(g) Data transparency.

(1) Initial air-traffic-services data report. (A) Within 6 months after the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 is enacted, the Administrator and the Air Traffic Organization's Chief Operating Officer must use the most recently available full-fiscal-year data to calculate, for each segment of air-traffic-services users, (i) the total costs allocable to that segment's use of air traffic services during that fiscal year, and (ii) the total revenues received from that segment during that fiscal year. (B)(i) Within 3 months after the initial report is completed, the Department of Transportation's Inspector General must review the model used for the calculations and determine whether it is valid. (ii) If the model is invalid, the Inspector General must recommend revisions; the Administrator and Chief Operating Officer must redo the calculations with the revised model and resubmit the revised initial report; and within 3 months after that revised report is completed, the Inspector General must review and determine whether the revised model is valid. (iii) The Administrator and Chief Operating Officer must give the Inspector General unrestricted access to all data produced by the cost-accounting system under subsection (e). (C) Within 60 days after the review is completed and the model is determined valid, the Administrator and Chief Operating Officer must send the specified House and Senate committees a report describing the calculation results. (D) Within 60 days after sending that report, they must publish the initial report, including any revision required by the model-validation process.

(2) Biennial air-traffic-services data reporting. No later than March 31, 2019, and every 2 years after that for 14 years, the Administrator and Chief Operating Officer must use the validated model to calculate, for each segment of air-traffic-services users for the most recent full fiscal year, (i) total costs allocable to that segment's use of air traffic services and (ii) total revenues received from that segment. Within 15 days after completing the calculations, they must send the specified House and Senate committees a report containing the results. Within 60 days after completing the calculations, they must publish the results.

(3) Segments of air-traffic-services users. (A) Each of these is a separate segment: (i) passenger air carriers operating under part 121 of title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations; (ii) all-cargo air carriers operating under part 121; (iii) operators covered by part 125; (iv) air carriers and piston-engine-aircraft operators under part 135; (v) air carriers and turbine-engine-aircraft operators under part 135; (vi) foreign air carriers providing passenger air transportation; (vii) foreign air carriers providing all-cargo air transportation; (viii) turbine-engine-aircraft operators under part 91, excluding subpart K; (ix) piston-engine-aircraft operators under part 91, excluding subpart K; (x) operators covered by subpart K of part 91; (xi) operators covered by part 133; (xii) operators covered by part 136; (xiii) operators covered by part 137; (xiv) operators of public aircraft qualifying under section 40125; and (xv) operators of aircraft that neither take off from nor land in the United States. (B) As revenue and air-traffic-services cost data become available for another segment, the Secretary may identify and include that additional segment.

(4) Definitions. “Air traffic services” means services used to monitor, direct, control, and guide aircraft or aircraft flows and to conduct flights safely, including communications, navigation, surveillance, and aeronautical-information services, when the FAA provides them directly or by contract. “Air traffic services user” means any person or entity using those FAA-provided or FAA-contracted services in United States airspace or international airspace delegated to the United States.