[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 1407 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
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117th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 1407
To enhance the early warning reporting requirements for motor vehicle
manufacturers, and for other purposes.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
April 28, 2021
Mr. Markey (for himself and Mr. Blumenthal) introduced the following
bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce,
Science, and Transportation
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To enhance the early warning reporting requirements for motor vehicle
manufacturers, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Early Warning Reporting System
Improvement Act of 2021''.
SEC. 2. ADDITIONAL EARLY WARNING REPORTING REQUIREMENTS.
(a) In General.--Section 30166(m) of title 49, United States Code,
is amended--
(1) in paragraph (3)--
(A) in subparagraph (C)--
(i) by striking ``The manufacturer'' and
all that follows through ``shall report'' and
inserting the following:
``(i) In general.--The manufacturer of a
motor vehicle or motor vehicle equipment,
including the manufacturer of an autonomous
vehicle or an automated driving system, shall
report''; and
(ii) by adding at the end the following:
``(ii) Incidents with injuries or
fatalities.--If an incident described in clause
(i) involves a serious injury or fatality, the
Secretary shall require the manufacturer to
submit, as part of the incident report under
clause (i)--
``(I) each initial claim or notice
document that notified the manufacturer
of the incident;
``(II) any police reports or other
documents describing or reconstructing
the incident;
``(III) any amendments or
supplements to the documents described
in subclause (I), except--
``(aa) medical documents
and bills; and
``(bb) property damage
invoices or estimates; and
``(IV) the assessment of the
manufacturer of the circumstances that
led to the incident, including the
analysis of the manufacturer with
respect to the claims or notices with
respect to allegations of a defect.
``(iii) Reporting requirements.--
Notwithstanding section 579.21 of title 49,
Code of Federal Regulations (or a successor
regulation), no report under this subsection
shall be limited by model year.''; and
(B) by adding at the end the following:
``(D) Settlements.--Notwithstanding any order
entered in a civil action restricting the disclosure of
information, a manufacturer of a motor vehicle or motor
vehicle equipment shall comply with the requirements of
this subsection and any regulation promulgated under
this subsection.'';
(2) in paragraph (4), by striking subparagraph (C) and
inserting the following:
``(C) Disclosure.--
``(i) In general.--The information provided
to the Secretary pursuant to this subsection--
``(I) shall be disclosed publicly
unless--
``(aa) exempt from
disclosure under section 552(b)
of title 5, subject to clause
(ii); or
``(bb) the information is
subject to an order entered in
a civil action restricting the
disclosure of information; and
``(II) shall be entered into a
public early warning reporting database
established by the Secretary in a
manner that is searchable by
manufacturer name, vehicle or equipment
make and model name, model year, and
type of potential defect.
``(ii) Inapplicability of confidentiality
provisions.--In administering clause (i)(I),
the Secretary shall not consider section
552(b)(4) of title 5 to prevent the public
disclosure of--
``(I) production information
regarding passenger motor vehicles;
``(II) information on incidents
involving death or serious injury;
``(III) numbers of property damage
claims; or
``(IV) aggregated numbers of
consumer complaints.''; and
(3) by adding at the end the following:
``(6) Use of early warning reports.--The Secretary shall
consider information gathered under this section in proceedings
described in sections 30118 and 30162.''.
(b) Regulations.--To promote the public availability of information
provided to the Secretary of Transportation under subsection (m) of
section 30166 of title 49, United States Code, and the utility of that
information to inspection and investigation activities conducted by the
Secretary under that section, not later than 2 years after the date of
enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall promulgate regulations to
carry out this section and the amendments made by this section.
(c) Nullification of Early Warning Reporting Class Determination
Regulations.--On the effective date of the regulations promulgated
under subsection (b), the regulations with respect to early warning
reporting class determinations contained in appendix C of part 512 of
title 49, Code of Federal Regulations (as in effect on that date),
shall have no force or effect.
SEC. 3. IMPROVED NATIONAL HIGHWAY TRAFFIC SAFETY ADMINISTRATION VEHICLE
SAFETY DATABASES.
(a) In General.--Not later than 2 years after the date of enactment
of this Act, and after consultation with frequent users of publicly
available databases of the Secretary of Transportation (referred to in
this section as the ``Secretary''), the Secretary shall improve public
accessibility to information on the publicly accessible vehicle safety
databases of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration by
revising the publicly accessible vehicle safety databases--
(1) to improve organization and functionality, including
design features such as drop-down menus;
(2) to allow for data from all of the publicly accessible
vehicle safety databases to be searched, sorted, aggregated,
and downloaded in a manner--
(A) consistent with the public interest; and
(B) that facilitates easy use by consumers;
(3) to provide greater consistency in presentation of
vehicle safety issues;
(4) to improve searchability about specific vehicles and
issues through standardization of commonly used search terms
and the integration of databases to enable each of the
databases to be simultaneously searched using the same keyword
search function; and
(5) to ensure that each document, study, investigation,
inspection, incident report, and other materials related to an
incident that are created or obtained by the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration are made publicly available in a
timely manner that is searchable in databases by--
(A) manufacturer name, vehicle or equipment make
and model name, and model year;
(B) type of potential defect;
(C) number of injuries or fatalities; and
(D) any other element that the Secretary determines
to be in the public interest.
(b) Inspection and Investigation Information.--The Secretary
shall--
(1) provide public notice of each inspection or
investigation activity conducted by the Secretary under section
30166 of title 49, United States Code; and
(2) make each notice described in paragraph (1), each
written response by a manufacturer to such a notice, and each
notice of any enforcement action or other action taken as a
result of an inspection or investigation described in that
paragraph--
(A) available to consumers on the Internet not
later than 5 days after the notice is issued or the
written response is received; and
(B) searchable by manufacturer name, vehicle or
equipment make and model name, model year, system or
component, and the type of inspection or investigation
being conducted.
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