You have to view all US regulatory goings-on wrt Boeing through the lens of Airbus-Boeing/EU-US trade rivalry (plus China's COMAC as a new entrant).
Boeing is the US's largest exporter (defense + civilian), and also the 65th largest US stock overall. Any US regulator action against Boeing would affect all that, plus US stock markets. You have to wonder how independent the FAA head can afford to be from Congressional interference, in the current setup. In the US, the FAA head is appointed (or, in recent admins, left vacant) by the Senate.
Back in the 2018/9 first 737MAX scandal [0], it was the Canadian, EU and Chinese regulators which were more aggressive about investigating and grounding, meanwhile the US FAA dragged its feet on taking action against Boeing while its donees like Congressman Sam Graves (R-MO 6) [1] continued to blame foreign pilot training, which was dishonest and adding insult to injury.
PS consider also in 2020, Rep. Mike Garcia (R-CA 27) secretly sold $50K Boeing stock ahead of his committee's damning 737MAX report; then avoided election scrutiny by simply blowing the deadline to report the stock sale... When he finally did disclose the sale, it was two weeks after the 2020 general election votes were cast, and three days after Garcia declared victory. He won by 333 votes. [2]
There's some scrutiny of Congressmen insider-trading biotech/pharma stocks esp. which their own committees (gasp) regulate, but really not a lot of scrutiny on aerospace. [3] Compare to George Santos, who wasn't implicated in a coverup that actually killed hundreds of people.
Boeing is the US's largest exporter (defense + civilian), and also the 65th largest US stock overall. Any US regulator action against Boeing would affect all that, plus US stock markets. You have to wonder how independent the FAA head can afford to be from Congressional interference, in the current setup. In the US, the FAA head is appointed (or, in recent admins, left vacant) by the Senate.
Back in the 2018/9 first 737MAX scandal [0], it was the Canadian, EU and Chinese regulators which were more aggressive about investigating and grounding, meanwhile the US FAA dragged its feet on taking action against Boeing while its donees like Congressman Sam Graves (R-MO 6) [1] continued to blame foreign pilot training, which was dishonest and adding insult to injury.
PS consider also in 2020, Rep. Mike Garcia (R-CA 27) secretly sold $50K Boeing stock ahead of his committee's damning 737MAX report; then avoided election scrutiny by simply blowing the deadline to report the stock sale... When he finally did disclose the sale, it was two weeks after the 2020 general election votes were cast, and three days after Garcia declared victory. He won by 333 votes. [2]
There's some scrutiny of Congressmen insider-trading biotech/pharma stocks esp. which their own committees (gasp) regulate, but really not a lot of scrutiny on aerospace. [3] Compare to George Santos, who wasn't implicated in a coverup that actually killed hundreds of people.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX_groundings#2019
[1]: https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/sam-graves/s...
[2]: https://www.thedailybeast.com/gop-rep-mike-garcia-secretly-s...
[3]: NYT 2022/09 : These 97 Members of Congress Reported Trades in Companies Influenced by Their Committees https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/09/13/us/politics/c...