U.S. Legislative Issues

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On September 17, the Senate Commerce Committee approved Christopher Hart to lead the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Hart was in his third term as Vice Chairman until Chair Deborah Hersman vacated her post in April to take the top spot at the National Safety Council.  Since then, Hart has served as acting Chairman, and in June, President Obama nominated him to a full term as Chairman. The Senate is expected to confirm the NTSB Chair nominee when they return to Washington in November following the midterm elections.


The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) Compliance, Safety Accountability (CSA) program continues to come under fire from a variety of stakeholders. Not helping its case is a report released earlier this year by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that found the CSA is not an instructive predictor of crash risk and is not effective in assessing the safety performance of individual motor carriers. Other critics of the program have written to Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Anthony Foxx, asking that FMCSA remove the safety scores from its public website on the grounds that the data and methodology used to produce the scores are flawed.

On September 18, Representative Lou Barletta (R-PA) introduced the Safer Trucks and Buses Act (H.R. 5532), legislation that would require the FMCSA to remove safety scores from the CSA website. The bill also requires that the program be changed to better reflect carrier safety and crash risk and bars any such previously published scores from being used as evidence in liability lawsuits. Under the legislation, only after FMCSA creates and implements an improvement plan approved by Congress could safety scores be republished.

Representative Barletta’s press release on H.R. 5532 can be found here.


On September 16, the Senate Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Insurance once again held a hearing on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the General Motors recall. Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO), who chaired the hearing, heard testimony from David Friedman, Acting Administrator at NHTSA. At the hearing, Administrator Friedman was grilled by Senators for NHTSA’s failure to use its full authority over automakers and its inability to figure out defect trends already widely identified by consumers.

General Motors has recalled more than 28 million vehicles since February 2014, most resulting from a faulty ignition switch, making it the largest vehicle recall in history. GM has admitted to several deaths resulting from the faulty switch, prompting the company to set up a compensation fund for victims of crashes linked to the switches. To date, it has received 125 death claims.

The massive recall and related deaths have led many in Washington to question the role of NHTSA in ensuring that vehicles are safe. Several hearings on the matter were held in April and June by the House Energy and Commerce Committee as well as the Senate Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Insurance. Legislation has also been introduced in response to the recall, including S.2559, the Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 2014, from Senator John D. Rockefeller (D-WV), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. The legislation would give the NHTSA increased funding to conduct more investigations and stronger powers to order unsafe vehicles off the road. To generate this increased funding, Rockefeller calls for the creation of a vehicle user safety fee on auto manufacturers. The user fees would start one year after enactment of the law at $3 per vehicle sold. They would then rise to $6 per vehicle for the second year and $9 for the third year, after which they would be adjusted annually for inflation.


On January 1, 2014, several tax incentives important to fleets expired, including the Bonus Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System (MACRS) or "bonus depreciation," which allows businesses to write off 50 percent of a truck’s purchase price the first year. For new autos, light trucks, vans, and SUVs subject to the luxury auto depreciation limits, the maximum depreciation allowed is increased by $8000.

Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle have expressed a desire to extend many of the expired tax incentives, but have yet to reach agreement on how to move forward. Senate Finance Committee Chairman, Ron Wyden (D-OR), prefers to retroactively extend all expired tax breaks as part of a comprehensive tax reform package, while his counterpart in the lower chamber, Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) of the House Ways and Means Committee, favors a piecemeal approach. As part of this strategy, Representative Camp and other Republican House leaders have taken up one bill at a time to pass permanent extensions of tax breaks they support. In the Senate, legislation to extend bonus depreciation was "filibustered" in May, effectively preventing it from coming up for a vote.

On September 18, the House passed a consolidated package of bills as part of its closing argument before adjourning until after the midterm elections. H.R. 4, "The Jobs for America Act," consisted of 14 bills the House has already passed this year, including H.R. 4718, the permanent extension of Bonus Depreciation. The Senate, which adjourned until after the November election just hours after the House, did not take up the bill. There is still hope that a compromise may be reached in the lame duck session, but the agenda will largely be dependent upon the outcome of the midterm election.
 

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