FAA must review and fix low-altitude airspace safety rules.
S. 4990 — McCarty and Heideman Air Safety Enhancement Act · Filed by Jeff Merkley (D-OR) · 5 cosponsors · Introduced Jul 15, 2026 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
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What it does
The bill tells the FAA to review low-altitude airspace safety rules within 6 months. The FAA must focus on marking and lighting slacklines, tightropes, and wires. If problems are found, the FAA must update rules within 1 year. The FAA must brief Congress on findings and needed law changes.
Who it affects
Pilots and the public benefit from safer low-altitude airspace. The bill costs citizens no money.
One thing to notice
The bill focuses on marking and lighting slacklines and wires. This suggests a real-world safety gap.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
5 cosponsors: 3 Democrats, 2 Republicans.
- Jul 15, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Jul 15, 2026 — Referred to Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Words to know
- low-altitude airspace — The sky close to the ground where small planes fly.
- slacklines — Ropes or wires strung between two points for walking or balancing.
- tightropes — Ropes stretched tight between two points for acrobats to walk on.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (3,910 characters) on Aug 12, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 14,707 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
As of — page rendered 2026-09-23.
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