Well consider the entire section 44709 (
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/44709 ) and suppose a pilot declines to be reexamined. The FAA then attempts to revoke that pilot's certificate or rating. The FAA has to "advise the holder of the certificate of the charges or other reasons on which the Administrator relies for the proposed action."
The pilot is allowed to appeal that proposed action to the NTSB. And the one part that the PBoR did amend of 44709 is that of the NTSB is no longer bound to apply FAA interpretations of regulations; all it now says is: "When conducting a hearing under this subsection, the Board is not bound by findings of fact of the Administrator."
The NTSB should ask, other than declining the reexamination, what charges or reasons does the FAA have that warranted the reexamination and subsequent revocation? The PBoR now makes the NTSB amost totally independent of the FAA's findings or fact and interpretations of the laws and regulations.
Lastly, the PBoR allows the pilot to file an appeal to any FAA or NTSB in a U.S. district court or court of appeals.
The FAA appears to be operating under the assumption that few to none of the hundreds of pilots affected will decline the reexamination, or if they do, that the FAA wont have to deal with hundreds of pilots appealing to the NTSB or the district courts. I doubt the FAA has the resources (or any legal basis) to successfully pursue hundreds of revocation actions winding their way through the courts.
