Mineta: Beef Up FHWA

Leave the motor carrier safety office where it is and make it stronger, suggested the leader of a blue ribbon panel that reviewed federal truck and bus safety.

The panel recommended adding "Motor Carrier Safety" to the name of the Federal Highway Administration and several senior staff people who would strengthen the focus.

"I'm saying beef up FHWA," Norman Y. Mineta said at a Wednesday congressional hearing. Mineta, a former chairman of the House Transportation Committee when he was a California congressman, chaired the review panel at the request of Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater.

Mineta told the House Ground Transportation Subcommittee he opposes creation of a separate motor carrier administration only because he was not sure Congress would support creating an 11th agency within DOT.

"You get the same amount of benefit in beefing up FHWA without the expense of creating a new agency," Mineta said. "The only reason I don't support going to a separate agency is because of the cost involved."

Enhancing the status of FHWA's Office of Motor Carrier and Highway Safety was one of the 36 recommendations outlined by Mineta after the four-month review of safety issue.

Slater asked Mineta in February to develop some recommendations on what changes, if any should be made in existing safety programs. The review was spurred by congressional debate over whether to move jurisdiction over truck safety from the highway agency to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

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