FAA involves international cooperation whereas most of the rest handle only internal US matters. Things that could be passed over in traditional wheeling & dea

FAA involves international cooperation whereas most of the rest handle only internal US matters. Things that could be passed over in traditional wheeling & dealing of US politicians corruption won't fly (pun intended) because failures will get international consequences and scrutiny and tend to involve big medially visible tragedies (and not white collar crime or slow and unmarketable deaths of poor aka nobody important). Noticeably, two times that president pushed a deregulation policy on FAA, the result was deadly accidents - DC-10 cargo door issues (Nixon) and 737 MAXX development (policy pushed under Bush Jr). Additionally, FAA and related orgs elsewhere tend to take "regulations are written in blood" even more than regular pilots, and thus there's a drive to self correct even in face of problematic political reality.