A landmark bipartisan bill could reshape how the FAA certifies the next generation of electric aircraft — and determine whether the United States leads or follows in the global advanced air mobility race.
The road to commercial air taxi operations in the United States has never been easy, but a newly introduced piece of legislation may signal that Washington is finally ready to help clear the path. On 12 February 2025, a bipartisan coalition of senators and representatives introduced the Aviation Innovation and Global Competitiveness Act, a wide-ranging bill designed to overhaul how the Federal Aviation Administration certifies electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft and other advanced air mobility (AAM) technologies.
The bill was introduced in the Senate by Senators Ted Budd (R-NC), Peter Welch (D-VT), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), and John Curtis (R-UT), and simultaneously in the House by Representatives Troy Nehls (R-TX), Jimmy Panetta (D-CA), and Jay Obernolte (R-CA). Its rare cross-party support underscores the growing recognition across the political spectrum that the United States risks ceding its competitive advantage in aerospace if the certification process for next-generation aircraft is not reformed.
The Problem the Bill Seeks to Solve
For companies developing eVTOL air taxis, the FAA's type certification process has proven to be a formidable and costly obstacle. Unlike conventional fixed-wing aircraft or traditional helicopters, eVTOL designs are genuinely novel — they use distributed electric propulsion, software-driven flight controls, and unconventional aerodynamic configurations that do not fit neatly into existing regulatory frameworks. The FAA, itself resource-constrained, has had to build its certification approach for this class of aircraft largely from scratch, and the results have often frustrated developers.
Joby Aviation and Archer Aviation offer illustrative examples of the process's difficulties. Both companies received FAA-approved certification bases — known as G-1 issue papers — in 2021, only to find that the agency subsequently modified its type certification framework for eVTOL aircraft. They were effectively required to restart key parts of the process and did not receive updated certification bases under the new framework until 2024. The delays cost time and money, and they injected significant uncertainty into project timelines. As of today, no major US-based eVTOL developer is expected to achieve full type certification in 2026.
The financial stakes are considerable. The advanced air mobility market has been projected to be worth in excess of $115 billion by 2030, and international competitors are not standing still. Chinese developers EHang and AutoFlight are racing toward passenger certification in 2026, while regulatory frameworks in the UAE and other regions are maturing rapidly. The fear that innovation and manufacturing investment could migrate overseas if the US certification environment remains unwieldy is a central motivation behind the legislation.
What the Bill Would Do
At its core, the Aviation Innovation and Global Competitiveness Act would require the FAA to enhance the transparency, predictability, and accountability of its type certification process for AAM aircraft. Senator Welch has described the goal as helping companies succeed while cementing the United States' role as a global leader in aviation.
One of the bill's most significant provisions concerns the use of industry consensus standards. Currently, the FAA determines how manufacturers must demonstrate airworthiness through a case-by-case negotiation process, resulting in the lengthy issue papers that have caused so much friction. The bill would direct the FAA to use industry-developed consensus standards as an acceptable means of compliance to the "maximum extent possible." In practical terms, this would give air taxi developers meaningful input into the technical standards against which their aircraft are evaluated — an approach that supporters argue already underpins certification in other areas of aviation, and that critics worry could compromise regulatory independence.
The legislation also addresses one of the sector's most persistent complaints: unpredictable timelines. Manufacturers have long struggled to plan and finance their programmes without clarity on how long FAA reviews of their issue papers would take. The bill would require the agency to estimate its response times to G-1 and G-2 issue papers within 270 days of the bill's passage, in coordination with trade groups representing AAM certification applicants and the airport infrastructure providers that will one day host vertiports.
Another key provision would codify into formal regulation many of the requirements that the FAA currently addresses through special conditions, special airworthiness criteria, and equivalent level of safety findings. By converting these case-by-case determinations into standing rules, the bill would reduce the volume of bespoke documentation that manufacturers must submit for each new design, lowering costs and accelerating reviews.
Finally, the bill would expand the FAA's ability to delegate routine type certification tasks to qualified third-party organisations — a practice known as delegation — so that the agency can concentrate its limited expert resources on the safety-critical judgements that most require government oversight.
Broad Industry Support
The legislation has attracted endorsements from across the aviation ecosystem, reflecting the breadth of the industry's frustration with the status quo. The Aerospace Industries Association, the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, Airports Council International-North America, and the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International have all backed the bill. So too have leading eVTOL developers Joby Aviation, Archer Aviation, and Beta Technologies, as well as Boeing and its air taxi subsidiary, Wisk Aero.
The National Business Aviation Association (NBAA), whose president Ed Bolen has argued that the current system discourages investment and risks pushing innovation overseas, said the bill would improve "transparency, predictability and accountability" in the certification process.
Regulatory Context
The bill does not emerge in a vacuum. The FAA has itself made meaningful progress on the AAM regulatory front. In 2024, it finalised a Special Federal Aviation Regulation establishing operating rules and pilot qualification standards for eVTOL air taxis. The same year, the FAA joined aviation regulators from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom in publishing a joint Roadmap for AAM Type Certification, signalling an intention to coordinate international standards development. In June 2024, the US Department of Transportation launched the eVTOL and AAM Integration Pilot Programme to promote pre-certification air taxi operations and gather operational data.
Taken together, these moves suggest that Washington understands the urgency of the challenge. The Aviation Innovation and Global Competitiveness Act, however, would go further than any previous effort by compelling the FAA to embed efficiency, transparency, and industry collaboration into its certification processes through force of law rather than agency discretion.
What Comes Next
The bill must now navigate the legislative process, which is rarely swift or predictable. However, its strong bipartisan backing in both chambers, combined with robust industry endorsement and the broader political imperative of maintaining American aerospace leadership, gives it a more credible path forward than many aviation bills manage.
For the companies that have spent years — and in some cases, hundreds of millions of dollars — working toward FAA type certification, the legislation offers something they have rarely had: a signal that Congress is prepared to act as a partner rather than a bystander in their efforts to bring a genuinely new class of aircraft to market. Whether that signal translates into enacted law, and whether the FAA can implement the reforms the bill envisions without compromising the safety standards that underpin public trust in aviation, will be among the defining questions for the advanced air mobility sector in the years ahead.