The Department of Transportation (DOT) consists of nine operating administrations and the Office of the Secretary, each of which has statutory responsibility for a wide range of regulations. For example, DOT regulates safety in the aviation, motor carrier, railroad, mass transit, motor vehicle, maritime, commercial space, and pipeline transportation areas. DOT regulates aviation consumer and economic issues and provides financial assistance and writes the necessary implementing rules for programs involving highways, airports, mass transit, the maritime industry, railroads, and motor vehicle safety. It writes regulations carrying out such disparate statutes as the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Uniform Time Act. The Department establishes tolls and operational requirements for the St. Lawrence Seaway. It regulates the construction and operation of bridges over navigable waters, the prevention of oil pollution, and the security of commercial aviation and passenger vessels. Finally, DOT has responsibility for developing policies that implement a wide range of regulations that govern internal programs such as acquisition and grants, access for the disabled, environmental protection, energy conservation, information technology, property asset management, seismic safety, security, and the use of aircraft and vehicles.
Although it carries this heavy regulatory workload, the Department has long been recognized as a leader in Federal efforts to improve and streamline the regulatory process and ensure that regulations do not impose unnecessary burdens. The Department was the first major Federal agency to establish a comprehensive internal management and review process for new and existing regulations. This process is codified in the Department's regulatory policies and procedures, which ensure that the Secretary and other appropriate appointed officials review and concur in all significant DOT rules.
For virtually all DOT rules, the initiating office must prepare an analysis that includes a discussion of the problem intended to be addressed, the major alternatives, the reasons for choosing one alternative over another, and the economic and other consequences of the action. The Department has a management process that permits key officials to follow closely the development of significant regulatory projects. The process is intended to ensure that these rulemakings are completed in a timely manner, and it facilitates top management's involvement in these actions.
Under the leadership of Secretary of Transportation Federico Peņa, the Department has adopted a regulatory philosophy that applies to all its rulemaking activities. This philosophy is articulated as follows: DOT regulations must be clear, simple, timely, fair, reasonable, and necessary. They will be issued only after an appropriate opportunity for public comment, which must provide an equal chance for all affected interests to participate, and after appropriate consultation with other governmental entities. The Department will fully consider the comments received. It will assess the risks addressed by the rules and their costs and benefits, including the cumulative effect. The Department will consider appropriate alternatives, including nonregulatory approaches. It will also make every effort to ensure that legislation does not impose unreasonable mandates.
Consistent with this process and the Department's regulatory philosophy, DOT continually seeks ways of improving the way it conducts its regulatory work. The creation of an electronic docket for the Department, the use of direct final rulemaking, and the increased use of regulatory negotiation are three examples of this.
This Department's regulatory process and philosophy also facilitated the Department's successful participation in President Clinton's Regulatory Reinvention Initiative. The cumulative impact of this effort was significant. The Department has removed 13.2 percent (1221 pages) of its Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) pages and reinvented an additional 19.6 percent (2129 pages) of its CFR pages. In addition, DOT took a number of specific, substantial regulatory steps that helped the Administration achieve its regulatory policy objectives. The following are a few examples:
In responding to other Presidential initiatives, the Department is ensuring that compliance efforts reward results and deemphasize red tape. It is stressing results, and education and training programs, to assist regulators and customers to work together to achieve compliance.
The Department has engaged in a wide variety of activities to help cement the partnerships between its agencies and its customers that will produce good results for transportation programs and safety. These have included summits with front-line regulators and representatives of regulated industries. In addition, the Department's agencies have established a number of continuing partnership mechanisms in the form of rulemaking advisory committees.
The Department of Transportation was a pioneer in creating the regulatory negotiation concept, and it conducted the Federal Government's first negotiated rulemaking. Since that time, DOT has conducted regulatory negotiations on a variety of subjects, such as the Air Carrier Access Act and aspects of the Oil Pollution Act. The Department has also used advisory committees to obtain customer input on regulatory projects, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act rule. Regulatory negotiation projects currently planned, underway, or completed concern such subjects as roadway worker safety (FRA), oxygen use by airline passengers (OST), headlamp aimability (the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, NHTSA), incorporating physical fitness determinations in the commercial drivers' license program (FHWA), qualifications for pipeline personnel (RSPA), and modernizing the motor carrier financial reporting requirements in light of changes made by the ICC Termination Act (Bureau of Transportation Statistics, BTS).
The Department's regulatory process and philosophy also make it possible for the Department to achieve the aims of the DOT Strategic Plan. Many of the objectives of this plan--Tie America Together, Invest Strategically in Transportation Infrastructure, Promote Safe and Secure Transportation, Actively Enhance Our Environment, and Put People First--call for creating, reinventing, or improving DOT regulations.
Office of the Secretary of Transportation (OST)
The Office of the Secretary (OST) oversees the regulatory process for the Department. OST implements the Department's regulatory policies and procedures and is responsible for ensuring the involvement of top management in regulatory decisionmaking. Through the General Counsel's office, OST is also responsible for ensuring that the Department complies with Executive Order 12866 and other legal and policy requirements affecting rulemaking. Although OST's principal role concerns making the Department's regulatory process run smoothly and effectively, this office also plays an important role in the substance of projects concerning aviation economic rules and those having cross-modal significance. In connection with its oversight and coordination role, the Office of the Secretary also led the Department's work to carry out President Clinton's Regulatory Reinvention Initiative.
OST provides guidance for use of regulatory personnel throughout the Department on compliance with requirements concerning the regulatory process. For example, OST provided guidance concerning implementation of the regulatory portions of the Unfunded Mandates Act, the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, and the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Act of 1996 (including congressional review of rules). It also provides updated information on such matters as compliance with Executive orders, economic analyses, the Regulatory Agenda and Plan, and other regulatory policy matters. OST provides guidance and training concerning cost-benefit analyses and risk assessments, as well as offering DOT personnel periodic training on regulatory development and process.
OST led and coordinated the Department's response to the Administration and Congress in 1995-96 concerning legislative proposals for regulatory reform. The General Counsel's office worked closely with representatives of other agencies, the Office of Management and Budget, the White House, and Congressional staff to provide information on how various proposals would affect the ability of the Department to perform its safety, infrastructure, and other missions. OST gathered substantial information from the operating administrations to provide examples of the effects of these proposals. Regardless of action on the pending proposals, OST and the operating administrations will continue their efforts to ensure that problems identified by proponents of the legislation do not exist in the Department's programs.
United States Coast Guard (USCG)
The United States Coast Guard, an armed force of the United States, has many peacetime missions directly affecting the public. These missions include placing and maintaining aids to navigation, enforcing laws and treaties, protecting the marine environment, performing search and rescue, and ensuring marine safety and security. Various statutes authorize the Coast Guard to issue regulations in connection with these missions. The Coast Guard traditionally provides for pollution prevention and safety of passengers, crew, cargo, and ports through a framework of regulations that apply to U.S. flag vessels and foreign vessels that call at U.S. ports. The Marine Safety Council, a group of senior Coast Guard officers, establishes regulatory policy, reviews each rulemaking project, and advises the Commandant of the Coast Guard on regulatory matters.
The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 mandated over 30 different rulemaking projects, affecting pollution liability, personnel training and qualification, and vessel construction and equipment requirements. A number of regulations issued under the authority of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 are now in effect, including requirements for financial responsibility, double-hull construction, vessel and facility oil spill response plans, and operational measures to prevent oil spills from tank vessels without double hulls. Other rulemaking projects, including requirements for hazardous substance response plans, are in progress.
The percentage of foreign vessel traffic in U.S. ports has increased significantly over the past several years. As a result, the Coast Guard is shifting its emphasis from ``flag state control,'' directed primarily at U.S. vessels, to ``port state control.'' Its goal will be to identify substandard foreign vessels and operators, and ensure that deficiencies are corrected. Through Coast Guard initiatives at the International Maritime Organization (IMO), international standards have been raised to a level comparable with U.S. domestic requirements. The Coast Guard has begun an effort to increase its acceptance of international standards and eliminate or reduce inconsistencies with domestic regulations, while still ensuring an appropriate level of safety.
The Coast Guard recognizes its obligation to engage in a partnership with the regulated public. It will continue to provide meaningful opportunities for public participation at all stages of the regulatory process, using negotiated rulemaking when possible. The Coast Guard also recognizes its obligation to protect the maritime interests of the United States through helping the regulated public to achieve compliance with effective, efficient regulations. Finally, the Coast Guard is working to reduce unnecessary paperwork burdens. The Coast Guard sponsors standing advisory committees and councils including: Chemical Transportation, Towing Safety, Merchant Marine Personnel, National Offshore Safety, Commercial Fishing Industry Vessel, National Boating Safety, and Navigational Safety, to facilitate a broad range of interests participating in regulatory development. Very few of the Coast Guard information collection requirements are in the form of regularly scheduled reports.
In 1994, the Coast Guard reviewed each part of the Code of Federal Regulations for which it is responsible, primarily in titles 33 and 46. It received suggestions for improving these regulations from members of the affected public at local grassroots meetings, at a meeting at Coast Guard Headquarters, in written comments, and from Coast Guard field personnel. In identifying regulations to be eliminated or reinvented, the Coast Guard selected those parts which impose the greatest burdens and provide the least benefits. As a result of this review, in 1995 and 1996 the Coast Guard removed more than 370 pages from the Code of Federal Regulations and reinvented more than 1,250 others, with the substantive effect of facilitating international commerce while also protecting maritime safety and the marine environment.
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
Title 49, United States Code, subtitle VII--Aviation Programs, charges the Administrator of the FAA with promoting safety of flight of civil aircraft in air commerce. The stated FAA mission is to provide a safe, secure, and efficient global aviation system which contributes to national security and the promotion of U.S. aviation. The Agency relies on its regulatory plan to provide that system.
The FAA currently has underway a major initiative to improve the regulatory process in the spirit of Executive Order 12866, which charges agencies to promulgate regulations that are effective, consistent, sensible, and understandable. As a matter of policy, the FAA will promulgate no regulation if a nonregulatory solution exists. Other innovations include:
Top regulatory priorities of the FAA for 1996-1997 include the regulations governing duty limitations and rest requirements for flight crewmembers, an update to the digital flight data recorder requirements, and three separate regulations to address airspace management and noise from aircraft overflights of the national parks (one specifically applying to the Grand Canyon National Park, one for the Rocky Mountain National Park, and the third to apply to national parks in general). Also, the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security, chaired by Vice President Gore, will be making a number of recommendations in the months ahead to enhance aviation safety and security and modernize air traffic control. To the extent regulatory action will be needed to support the recommendations, the FAA will take the appropriate action.
Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)
FHWA will continue to promulgate regulatory actions to implement the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 and other relevant statutes and will revise existing regulations where appropriate. The FHWA will rigorously pursue regulatory reform in areas where project development can be streamlined or accelerated, duplicative requirements can be consolidated, recordkeeping requirements can be reduced or simplified, and the decisionmaking authority of our State and local partners can be increased.
The major areas in which the FHWA will initiate or continue to develop significant rulemaking actions are in its ongoing zero-base review of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations and in implementing the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act. The goals and objectives of the zero-base review project are to (a) focus on those areas of enforcement and compliance which are most effective in reducing motor carrier accidents, (b) reduce compliance costs, (c) encourage innovation, (d) clearly and succinctly describe what is required, and (e) facilitate enforcement. Through the zero-base review, the FHWA intends to develop a unified, performance-based regulatory system that will enhance safety on our Nation's highways while minimizing the burdens placed on the motor carrier industry. In addition, the FHWA is currently redrafting the Rules of Practice for Motor Carrier Safety and Hazardous Materials Proceedings. It plans to simplify the current process to facilitate responses by the accused motor carriers and drivers and to offer alternative means of adjudicating the claims. It also intends to promulgate comprehensive rules covering the entire enforcement process from initial contact with the motor carrier to the final disposition of the claim.
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
The statutory responsibilities of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) include reducing and mitigating motor vehicle crashes and related fatalities and injuries, providing motor vehicle information to consumers, and improving automotive fuel efficiency. The Agency pursues policies that encourage the development of nonregulatory approaches when feasible in meeting its statutory mandate; issues new standards and regulations or amendments to existing standards and regulations when appropriate; ensures that regulatory alternatives reflect a careful assessment of the problem and a comprehensive analysis of the benefits, costs, and other impacts associated with the proposed regulatory action; and considers alternatives consistent with the Administration's regulatory principles.
In addition to numerous programs that focus on the safety and performance of the motor vehicle, the Agency is engaged in a variety of programs to improve driver behavior. These programs emphasize the human aspects of motor vehicle safety and recognize the important role of the States in this common pursuit. This goal is accomplished by a number of means, including encouraging initiatives in such areas as safety belt usage, motorcycle helmet usage, child safety-seat usage, activities aimed at combating drunk driving and driving under the influence of other drugs, and consumer information activities.
Furthering initiatives begun under the National Performance Review, NHTSA is conducting several program evaluations that are designed to review and evaluate the actual benefits, costs, and overall effectiveness of existing standards and regulations. For example, the Agency will continue evaluating Standard 208's automatic crash protection requirement and Standard 214's new dynamic side-impact protection requirement and begin evaluating Standard 108's requirement for reflective marking (either retroreflective tape or reflex reflectors) on heavy truck trailers to enhance their detectability at night or under other conditions of reduced visibility. NHTSA will also begin evaluating the implementation of the American Automobile Labeling Act, which requires new passenger cars, light trucks and multipurpose passenger vehicles to carry labels providing information on their domestic and foreign parts content.
NHTSA's regulatory program includes additional proposals that will be undertaken in order to allow design flexibility, promote new technology, and encourage market competition and consumer choice. Also, pursuant to the President's 1995 Regulatory Reinvention Initiative, NHTSA has undertaken a review of all its regulations and directives. During the course of this review, the Agency identified regulations that are potential candidates for rescission or amendment. NHTSA completed action on many of the candidate regulations and will complete action on the few remaining ones in the coming year. The Agency will also be continuing other ongoing safety rulemakings.
Federal Railroad Administration (FRA)
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) exercises regulatory authority over all areas of railroad safety. The Federal Railroad Safety Act of 1970 is the primary source of this authority.
FRA promotes safe, environmentally sound, and successful railroad transportation to meet the current and future needs of all its customers. It encourages policies and investment in infrastructure and technology to enable rail to reach its full potential.
FRA seeks to develop a regulatory program that is based on the regulatory principles enunciated in Executive Order 12866 and that satisfies the Order's basic criteria for such programs. FRA's vision is of a regulatory program that protects the health and safety of all persons affected by railroading in America and enhances the environment without imposing unreasonable costs on society. FRA seeks to create regulations that are as ``effective, consistent, sensible, and understandable'' as those envisioned by the President in his Order. More specifically, given the significant number of pending congressional mandates for railroad safety regulations, FRA is also challenged to address the most important regulatory issues on the Agency's own agenda in the most timely and reasonable manner possible.
While railroad safety has improved substantially over the past decade due to the implementation of easy and obvious risk reduction measures, significant risk remains due to the nature of rail transportation. Properly ranking safety priorities, based on apparent need and available opportunities for risk reduction, requires increasingly sophisticated approaches to accident and casualty trend analysis, industry practices, and other factors. Fashioning solutions that have favorable benefit-to-cost ratios, and that, where feasible, incorporate flexible performance standards, requires cooperative action by all affected parties. Interested parties have traditionally approached rail safety rulemakings in an adversarial manner, however, which greatly inhibited the development of the best regulatory approaches to resolve difficult safety issues.
FRA began addressing these concerns when it decided to use negotiated rulemaking to create a rule addressing the safety of roadway workers. Begun early in 1995, the negotiated rulemaking advisory committee reached a consensus agreement about how best to ensure the safety of roadway workers and presented its recommendations to the Agency. FRA issued an NPRM based upon these recommendations in March of 1996 and expects to issue the rule in final by November of 1996. This negotiated rulemaking represented an historic departure from FRA's traditional rulemaking program.
Building on its success with this collaborative rulemaking experience, and also to further address the concerns delineated above, FRA established the Railroad Safety Advisory Committee (RSAC) in late March of 1996. Making collaborative rulemaking a new way of doing business at FRA is essential to future improvements in public and railroad employee safety. RSAC provides the foundation for accomplishing this objective because it represents a rare commitment on the part of labor unions, railroads, and private associations to work together, and with FRA, on the establishment of regulatory priorities, the gathering and analysis of safety data, and the development of standards which are necessary to ensure that maximum safety levels are both obtained and maintained. As such, it is important to the creation of trust, both between the Agency and the industry, as well as among industry members.
The purpose of RSAC is to develop consensus recommendations for regulatory action on issues referred to it by FRA. Where consensus is achieved, and FRA believes it serves the public interest, the resulting rule is very likely to be better understood, more widely accepted, more cost-beneficial, and more correctly applied. Where consensus cannot be achieved, however, FRA will fulfill its regulatory role without the benefit of RSAC's recommendations.
The RSAC has met on a quarterly basis so far and currently has established working groups to address the following five tasks: (1) the revision of the regulations governing power brake systems for freight equipment; (2) the revision of the regulations governing track safety standards; (3) the revision of the regulations governing radio standards and procedures; (4) the revision of the regulations governing locomotive inspection standards for steam-powered locomotives; and (5) the review of FRA regulations for their applicability to tourist, excursion, scenic, and historic railroads on and off the general rail system.
Other than those items being addressed by the RSAC, or other collaborative rulemaking initiatives like the negotiated rulemaking on roadway worker safety, FRA's current regulatory priorities include the issuance of final rules on several important subjects: passenger equipment standards, emergency preparedness for rail passenger service, and two-way end-of-train telemetry devices.
Federal Transit Administration (FTA)
The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) provides financial assistance to State and local governments for mass transportation purposes. The regulatory activity of FTA focuses on establishing the terms and conditions of Federal financial assistance available under the Federal transit laws.
FTA's policy regarding regulations is to:
As mass transportation needs have changed over the years, so have the requirements for Federal financial assistance under the Federal transit laws and related statutes. FTA's regulatory priority for 1996 is to assist FTA recipients in complying with the drug and alcohol rules and the State safety oversight rule.
Maritime Administration (MARAD)
MARAD administers Federal laws and programs designed to promote and maintain a U.S. merchant marine capable of meeting the Nation's shipping needs for both national security and domestic and foreign commerce.
MARAD's regulatory objectives and priorities are prescribed by statute and reflect the Agency's responsibility for ensuring the availability of adequate and efficient water transportation services for American shippers and consumers. To advance these objectives, MARAD issues regulations, which are principally administrative and interpretive in nature, when appropriate, in order to provide a net benefit to the U.S. maritime industry. In developing its regulations MARAD routinely consults with other interested agencies, for example, the Departments of Defense and Agriculture, to ensure that its cargo preference regulations can be implemented by those agencies in a cost-effective manner.
Research and Special Programs Administration (RSPA)
The Research and Special Programs Administration (RSPA) has responsibility for rulemaking under two programs. Through the Associate Administrator for Hazardous Materials Safety, RSPA administers regulatory programs under Federal hazardous materials transportation law and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, as amended by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. Through the Associate Administrator for Pipeline Safety, RSPA administers regulatory programs under the Federal pipeline safety laws and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, as amended by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990.
In the area of hazardous materials transportation, the regulatory priorities are to complete the rulemaking actions mandated by the 1990 amendments of the Federal hazardous materials law, including extending Federal regulation to the intrastate highway transportation of hazardous materials. Another priority is to update and consolidate the regulatory requirements for cylinders used to transport hazardous materials.
The regulatory priorities in the pipeline area are to manage the risks inherent in pipeline transportation through strategies directed at prevention, detection, and mitigation activities. Specific regulatory actions to implement these activities include excavation damage prevention programs, mandating participation in one-call notification systems, increased inspection requirements using instrumented internal inspection devices, and prescribing risk-based approaches to pipeline safety regulations.
Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS)
The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 created the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS). BTS is responsible for compiling, analyzing, and making accessible information on the nation's transportation systems; collecting information on intermodal transportation and other areas as needed; and enhancing the quality and effectiveness of the statistical program of DOT through research, the development of guidelines, and the promotion of improvements in data acquisition and use.
One of BTS's regulatory priorities is to completely review its motor carrier financial data collection program. The data is collected under recently revised statutory authority, which requires BTS to give consideration to: (1) safety needs; (2) the need to preserve confidential business information and trade secrets and prevent competitive harm; (3) private sector, academic, and public use of information in the reports; and (4) the public interest. Further, the statute calls for BTS to ``streamline and simplify'' reporting requirements to the ``maximum extent practicable.'' Among the issues BTS plans to address are: which motor carriers should report, what data items should be collected, and how often should data be collected. BTS hopes to use negotiated rulemaking to help it design a collection program that meets legitimate public and private sector data needs while minimizing the burden on the industry.
BTS's Office of Airline Information (OAI), collects airline passenger, cargo, traffic, and financial data. This information gives the Government consistent and comprehensive economic and market data on individual airline operations and is used, for instance, in supporting policy initiatives, negotiating international bilateral aviation agreements, awarding international route authorities, and meeting international treaty obligations. The aviation, travel, and tourism communities value this information for a variety of purposes, such as conducting analyses of on-time performance, denied boardings, and market trends.
BTS's regulatory priority in the aviation area is to conduct a complete review and modernization of the passenger origin and destination survey. BTS can make significant improvements by providing data for the needs of DOT and other users in a way that takes advantage of the information revolution and matches the dramatically changing airline industry.