NOISE SYMPOSIUM: Page 12

Should ICAO fail, in 2001, to develop certification standards and transitional rules "in line with Community requirements, the Commission may have to propose European requirements...." The development of a noise classification scheme "within Chapter 3" - in other words, subdivide Chapter 3 into subcategories for purposes of operating restrictions or noise-based fees. The development of a new method of measuring and calculating aircraft noise that is more useful than the certification data, which is all that is currently available. These initiatives, if carried out unilaterally by the EU, will further fragment international aircraft noise regulation into a regional system. This will make more difficult the process of designing and building aircraft and developing noise reduction technology, will impair the marketability and transfer of aircraft among different nations, and make the future even more unpredictable than it already is. * * * My purpose in this talk has not been to heap reproach on the European Union, or to take a "holier than thou" position. Both the EU and the United States must find effective ways to deal with aircraft noise, and it may be that the same set of rules may not be equally acceptable in Berlin, Burbank and Baku. But the acrimonious and damaging dispute over this rule dramatizes the importance of international agreement on the most fundamental rights in the most international of all businesses. The most constructive step towards reaching such agreement on new standards and rules would be to take away this unnecessary obstacle, and permit the parties to decide, without coercion, how best to achieve meaningful and practicable noise relief in the future.
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Should ICAO fail, in 2001, to develop certification standards and transitional rules "in line with Community requirements, the Commission may have to propose European requirements...."

The development of a noise classification scheme "within Chapter 3" - in other words, subdivide Chapter 3 into subcategories for purposes of operating restrictions or noise-based fees.

The development of a new method of measuring and calculating aircraft noise that is more useful than the certification data, which is all that is currently available.

These initiatives, if carried out unilaterally by the EU, will further fragment international aircraft noise regulation into a regional system. This will make more difficult the process of designing and building aircraft and developing noise reduction technology, will impair the marketability and transfer of aircraft among different nations, and make the future even more unpredictable than it already is.

* * *

My purpose in this talk has not been to heap reproach on the European Union, or to take a "holier than thou" position. Both the EU and the United States must find effective ways to deal with aircraft noise, and it may be that the same set of rules may not be equally acceptable in Berlin, Burbank and Baku. But the acrimonious and damaging dispute over this rule dramatizes the importance of international agreement on the most fundamental rights in the most international of all businesses. The most constructive step towards reaching such agreement on new standards and rules would be to take away this unnecessary obstacle, and permit the parties to decide, without coercion, how best to achieve meaningful and practicable noise relief in the future.