Agency takes first step toward regulations aimed at reducing exposure to a dangerous neurotoxin, a potential health benefit for people who live near smaller airports
We know that the lead in aviation gas ends up in the blood of kids living near airports, and that there is no “safe” level of exposure, with even tiny amounts of it causing lifelong brain damage.
About a year ago, the FAA approved an unleaded fuel for all piston-driven propeller planes just over a year ago, but it’s not yet widely available.
A small number of airports, notably two in California and one in Colorado have announced ends to the sale of leaded fuel.
The Republican version of the FAA reauthorization bill has some funny language:
The House version of the bill would require airports that receive federal grants to continue selling the same kinds of fuels they sold in 2018 in perpetuity.
Since all the small-plane airports were selling unleaded fuel in 2018, this would force them to keep on selling leaded fuel forever, but without saying what’s going on.
It’s worth giving your rep and senators a call to encourage them to phase out leaded fuel as quickly as possible.
Leaded fuel has a lot of advantages for performance as well as allowing refineries to continue to sell leaded fuel at similar levels. I suspect this is a handout to the energy sector as it let’s them to keep the status-quo instead of re-tooling their processes. Plus it’s a very innocuous change that no-one needs to take responsibility for. Low-political risk, decent monetary reward for whomever it benefits.
Furthermore all lobbyists should be imprisoned for corruption.