Pinocchio Chronicles: the $1185 FAA Boilerplate Form

Background:

Say you work at McClellan-Palomar Airport in Carlsbad. You need an FAA Airport Improvement Program grant form to get federal funds to lengthen the runway

You call or email the FAA in El Segundo. In a day or two, two forms land on your desk. First, the 3-page Application for Federal Assistance SF-424 form. Second , the 8-page OMB (Office of Management and Budget) Form 4040-0004 (Grants.gov Form Instructions). Good to go.

FOIA:

Now assume you as a Carlsbad resident want to see what SD County must tell the FAA when SD asks for federal monies to extend the Palomar runway. You send a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the FAA in February 2024. You ask for the form the county must use to apply for an FAA grant including any requirements about the county telling the FAA about local restrictions, such as those of Carlsbad.

Seven months later in September 2024, the FAA sends you the magic forms. The FAA also includes a 4-page FAA Form 1270-1 entitled “FOIA Request Checklist/Fee Worksheet.” The Worksheet tells you the FAA spent 15 hours looking for these blank magic FAA boilerplate forms that are used across the United States. Worse, the FAA charged you $89 per hour to find these records.

So an FAA staffer, paid about $178,000 annually, took 15 hours to find blank standard FAA forms that a 10 minute email or phone call to a knowledgeable FAA program manager would have given immediately. As the FOIA requester, if you do not have a media or other fee waiver, the FAA will bill you $1,185.

The FAA will report to Congress that it spent $1,185 to respond to your FOIA request. Of course, the FAA will not tell Congress that it frittered away 7 months for a one hour task. Is it any wonder that the U.S. National Debt now stands at about $35,300,000,000,000?