Thune Wants CSA Overhaul
This story appears in the March 23 print edition of Transport Topics.
WASHINGTON — Sen. John Thune, chairman of the influential Commerce Committee, told Transport Topics last week he will introduce legislation to overhaul the government’s Compliance, Safety, Accountability program.
“We need to take another look at the data inputs, how accident fault is used, and whether there might be a better way to develop a safety partnership,” Thune said in an exclusive interview with TT on March 16. “Each element of the bill I hope to introduce soon is designed to improve safety while enhancing the regulator-industry relationship.”
The legislation to alter the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s safety scoring system would establish a voluntary investment framework focused on safety technology and best industry practices. Doing so, the chairman explained, would encourage drivers to complete more thorough pre-trip inspections and address violations quicker without having to worry about being penalized for them.
Noting a March 4 Government Accountability Office report, the chairman said that CSA’s analysis, which is made available on the agency’s website, “does little to improve safety but has significant economic impacts.”
GAO said FMCSA has demonstrated challenges in its reliability of CSA’s safety measurement system in predicting carrier crashes and determining the prevalence of chameleon carriers. Those carriers are firms that dissolve and reform under a new name to avoid federal monitoring.
The report also noted FMCSA had not adopted a GAO recommendation that it revise aspects of the program’s methodology.
The CSA program provides FMCSA, state authorities and the industry with data about carriers’ performance on the road.
Thune took over the Commerce panel in January. He is the chamber’s third-ranking Republican and has been mentioned as a potential candidate for president in 2016.
He said he would pursue bills that would address demands of freight shippers and railroads, delay the implementation of positive train control systems for railroads until 2020 and support legislation Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) will unveil about reforming FMCSA.
The chairman has raised concerns about the agency’s hours-of-service rule, certain parts of which Congress suspended through Sept. 30. Like most proponents of that suspension, Thune said he would await the findings of a congressionally directed study that will examine the rule’s safety claims before taking further steps on the issue.
The agency “seems to be unable to develop data-driven regulations that get at the heart of the matter, safety,” Thune said.
Combining comprehensive tax reform with a long-term surface transportation bill also is a high priority for the chairman, whose committee has jurisdiction over truck safety programs.
Lawmakers are working under a May 31 deadline for which to reauthorize highway programs, and Congress is struggling to finance a multiyear highway bill. Thune agrees Congress has to decide on how to ensure a robust and viable source of revenue to come up with about $15 billion a year for the federal Highway Trust Fund.
The account, funded primarily through diesel and gasoline user fees, is projected to run out of money in a few months.
“I approach the challenge as an optimist, but each day we get closer to May 31 increases the likelihood that Congress will have to fall back on a short-term solution,” Thune said, “We need a long-term dedicated source of revenue so that we stop funding transportation with debt financed by our children and grandchildren.”
He continued, “What tends to hold us up isn’t a discussion about the need for safer roads and bridges, but how we pay for them.”
Tapping into private capital to fund big-ticket highway projects is an approach Thune also supports.
“It’s important that we make the necessary investments,” he told a National Journal magazine editor last month. “A part of that is a lot of private investment, but government has a role to play.”
Thune has indicated he is not supporting a fuels tax increase to back highway projects. Raising such user fees is an approach backed by trucking industry leaders and throughout many pockets of the transportation sector. The federal tax on diesel is 24.4 cents a gallon, and for gasoline it is 18.4 cents.
However, leading transportation observers argue lawmakers are unlikely to pass a long-term bill and reform the tax system by May.
Thune’s congressional pedigree is vast, and transportation takes up a significant part of his legislative portfolio. As a member of the House, he contributed to the 1998 surface transportation bill. In 2005, as he began his career in the Senate, he helped shape aspects of that year’s surface transportation bill.
Trucking leaders have backed Thune’s re-election efforts. In the 2013-2014 cycle, Federal Election Commission documents showed that American Trucking Associations’ political action committee donated $5,000. The chairman also has received donations from freight industries, as well as the health care and financial services sectors.
