FAA Sides With AOPA Et Al On Santa Clara 100LL Ban Complaint
County rebuffed due to obligations associated with federal grants.
Reid-Hillview Airport Credit: Santa Clara County
The FAA has released a 36-page decision on a complaint filed by the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA), joined by local pilots and aviation businesses, against the County of Santa Clara, California. The decision finds that the county’s 2022 prohibition of 100LL aviation fuel violated its federal airport grant obligations. The county agreed to those obligations when it accepted approximately $6.8 million in funding between 1983 and 2011.
The FAA gave the county 30 days to present a plan of corrective action, further requiring the elimination of countywide prohibition of the acquisition, storage and sale of 100LL fuel at the two county-operated airports—Reid-Hillview Airport (KRHV) and San Martin Airport (E16). In addition, AOPA wrote in its announcement of the decision, “The agency also requires the county to eliminate the ‘prohibited exclusive right’ the county created for itself by only selling Swift Fuels 94UL and General Aviation Modifications Inc. G100UL as a means to prohibit the use of 100LL,” quoting the decision’s language, “favoring one class of aircraft (those that can safely use 94UL and G100UL) to the detriment of another class of aircraft (those that cannot safely use 94UL and G100UL)."
