H.R. 5532 — Introduced in House

I 113th CONGRESS 2d Session H. R. 5532 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES September 18, 2014 Mr. Barletta introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure A BILL To improve the Compliance, Safety, Accountability initiative of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, and for other purposes. 1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Safer Trucks and Buses Act of 2014. 2. Compliance, Safety, Accountability initiative (a) Data availability and use (1) Availability The Secretary of Transportation shall ensure that covered motor carrier data is not made available to the public. (2) Use Covered motor carrier data may not be admitted into evidence or otherwise used in a civil action for damages resulting from an incident involving a motor carrier. (3) Termination Paragraphs (1) and (2) shall cease to have effect on the date on which the Secretary submits to Congress the report required under subsection (d). (b) Initial report Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall submit to Congress a report that contains recommendations on how to improve the Compliance, Safety, Accountability initiative of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, including recommendations to ensure that the initiative— (1) utilizes and generates only safety data and scores, including Safety Measurement System scores, determined to be predictive of motor carrier accidents; (2) appropriately addresses concerns relating to the age of utilized safety data, including violations; (3) does not unfairly harm small motor carriers as a result of limited safety data availability; (4) appropriately addresses differences between motor carriers transporting passengers and motor carriers transporting freight; (5) generates safety data that allows individual motor carriers, including safety scores assigned to individual motor carriers, to be effectively compared; and (6) utilizes accurate safety data, including— (A) by appropriately addressing variations between State- and self-reported data; (B) by accounting for geographic disparities with respect to enforcement; and (C) by utilizing only crash data from crashes with respect to which a motor carrier was at fault. (c) Implementation of recommendations Not later than 90 days after the date on which the Secretary submits to Congress the report required under subsection (b), the Secretary shall begin implementing the recommendations included in that report. (d) Certification of implementation Not later than 1 year after the date on which the Secretary begins implementing recommendations under subsection (c), the Secretary shall complete the implementation of such recommendations and shall submit to Congress a report that— (1) describes the implementation of such recommendations; (2) contains a document in which the Secretary certifies that such implementation is complete; and (3) contains a document in which the Inspector General of the Department of Transportation certifies that such implementation is complete. (e) Definitions In this section, the following definitions apply: (1) Covered motor carrier data The term covered motor carrier data means data generated with respect to a motor carrier under the Compliance, Safety, Accountability initiative of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, including any ranking, rating, score, or other measurement. (2) Motor carrier The term motor carrier has the meaning given that term in section 13102 of title 49, United States Code.