As the Federal Aviation Administration considers making the current flight restrictions over Mar-a-Lago permanent, a citizens’ advisory committee is requesting that the agency extend a public comment period by 60 days.
The Citizens’ Committee on Airport Noise voted unanimously at its Thursday, September 24, meeting to send two communications to the FAA.
One of those is the request to extend the comment period on the proposed permanent flight restrictions by 60 days, to December 1, instead of the current October 2 deadline.
The other communication is the committee’s formal objection to the FAA rules themselves, submitted in response to the FAA’s September 2 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, which would enshrine temporary flight restrictions in place since October 20, 2025. The restrictions ban most flights within one nautical mile of Mar-a-Lago, even when President Trump is away from the private club.
The citizens’ committee advises the Palm Beach County Board of County Commissioners on matters pertaining to aircraft noise at President Donald J. Trump International Airport.
The flight restrictions have changed the way many planes fly in and out of the airport. Most commercial flights now fly over Midtown and some of West Palm Beach’s historic neighborhoods. The change has triggered complaints about noise and environmental impacts for more than 20,000 people living in more than 5,000 homes along the new flight path.
Lew Crampton, a member of the committee and of the Palm Beach Town Council, urged everyone to pay attention to the Quiet Skies Coalition, a citizens’ advocacy group organizing opposition to the flight-path changes that redirected flight paths away from Mar-a-Lago and over their homes. The coalition says it has gathered a petition bearing nearly 2,000 signatures of opposition to the flight restrictions.
“The issue we are all up in open arms about, I don’t believe is going to be solved here,” said Crampton, a resident of Palm Beach’s South End. “The Quiet Skies Coalition is making every effort to reach out to all affected neighborhoods. We’re all one. We’re lining up spokespeople. This is going to be pitchforks and torches at the doorstep of the FAA.”
Palm Beach’s Town Council voted unanimously on September 8 to request a 60-day extension of the public comment period, with council members and Mayor Danielle Moore saying the 30-day comment window is not sufficient time for residents to express their concerns.
Moore followed up with a letter to the U.S. Department of Transportation requesting a 60-day extension, citing the complexity and permanent nature of the proposed rule.
More than 550 comments have been submitted to the FAA so far. Information and a link to make a comment can be found at townofpalmbeach.com under current issues/FAA.
The FAA implemented the temporary flight restrictions after the Secret Service said they were needed for security reasons. Palm Beach officials have said the town is not opposed to the restrictions to protect the president when he is in residence at Mar-a-Lago. But they have questioned the need for putting them in effect even when the president is not in town, and for making them permanent.
Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, and Palm Beach County have appealed multiple FAA orders in the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, where the cases were consolidated by a judge.
In response to the appeals, the FAA said in August that threats against Secret Service protectees are up about 40 percent over a year ago.
At their meeting on September 15, county commissioners voted 4-3 to suspend their lawsuit against the FAA over the flight path changes, while preserving the county’s legal rights.
The lawsuit, which has cost the county $254,000 thus far, was filed in December 2025 and targeted the temporary flight restrictions that are set to expire on October 20, 2026. The new permanent rule now under consideration by the FAA will supersede and replace the temporary restrictions, thus rendering it moot, Laura Beebe, director of airports for the Palm Beach County Department of Airports, told the committee at Thursday’s meeting.
Nancy Pullum, chairman of the citizens’ committee on airport noise, noted that a mandatory Environmental Impact Study, which discusses the environmental impacts of a proposed action and reasonable alternatives, was not performed on the temporary flight restrictions. Now that the FAA proposes to make the action permanent, the agency says there is no negative environmental impact, and therefore no study will be done, she said.
“It didn’t say what was looked at,” Pullum said. “It just said, ‘It’s done.’”
She questioned how Washington bureaucrats can state that there is no environmental impact without a study being performed and when she said local residents’ properties after being affected by the altered flight paths.
Crampton pointed out that he served four years as an associate administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency under the Reagan Administration.
He called the decision not to do the environmental impact study “an absolutely egregious way to proceed.”
“I know what the FAA has done – using categorical exclusion as an excuse not to do an environmental impact statement – is a blatant violation of the law,” Crampton said. “That’s going to be litigated. In the end, all of this will be litigated in court and it will be decided whether or not the FAA has made the correct move.”
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