CSA Reforms Proposed in 6-Year House Highway Bill
WASHINGTON — The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration would need to propose ways to improve its scoring program if a study required under a six-year highway bill unveiled Oct. 16 finds flaws in the program.
The legislation calls on FMCSA to commission a study on its Compliance, Safety, Accountability program, and when the study is concluded the head of FMCSA would be required to present Congress with a “corrective action” plan for fixing CSA.
The plan must identify areas where CSA needs to be improved, an estimated cost for carrying out such improvements and benchmarks for achieving them. The plan would need to include revisions to regulations or proposals for legislation. The plan also would need to be considered in any rulemaking related to CSA, including the program’s Safety Measurement System.
Finally, FMCSA would then need to update Congress on the plan’s progress.
Also, upon the bill’s enactment into law, certain CSA data would no longer be made public until DOT’s inspector general conducts an extensive review of the CSA program. That data includes information regarding analysis of violations, crashes in which a determination is made that the motor carrier or the commercial driver is not at fault, alerts, or the relative percentile for each BASIC (Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories) developed under CSA.
“As with most government agencies, FMCSA’s regulatory and enforcement programs are not keeping pace with changes in business practices and technological innovations occurring in the industry today,” committee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) told Transport Topics.
The legislation also would establish a National Surface Transportation and Innovative Finance Bureau within DOT, streamline the environmental review and permitting process for infrastructure projects and encourage the installation of vehicle-to-infrastructure equipment.
Overall, the $325 billion measure includes $261 billion for highway programs and $55 billion for transit systems, with the rest dedicated for truck and bus safety grants and operations, committee aides told reporters Oct. 16.
The committee is scheduled to call up the bill Oct. 22. After that, the committee’s staff expects the bill to proceed quickly to the full House and the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee to unveil a funding plan for the bill by then. Ways and Means leaders have jurisdiction over the Highway Trust Fund, a road-building account.
