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“DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION RULEMAKING PROCESS NEEDS A JUMP START” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Transportation was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E1300-E1301 on July 21, 2000.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION RULEMAKING PROCESS NEEDS A JUMP START
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HON. JAMES L. OBERSTAR
of minnesota
in the house of representatives
Thursday, July 20, 2000
Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, the Department of Transportation's Office of the Inspector General today released the results of a study, done at my request, of the Department's rulemaking process. The IG's report conforms what many of us involved in transportation policy have suspected, that the DOT is doing a poor job meeting rulemaking deadlines.
According to the report, DOT is taking, on average, twice as long to issue rules as it did just six years ago. The report compares the number of significant rules completed in 1999, and the average time it complete each process, with corresponding figures from 1993. The results are not encouraging. In 1993, the department issued 45 rules and took an average of 1.8 years to complete work on each; in 1999, the department issued 20 new rules after working an average of 3.8 years on each. In other words, DOT is taking twice as long to do half as much.
The study further shows that the Office of the Secretary is the slowest among the operating administrations in the department, taking an average of 6.6 years in 1999 to complete action on proposed rules. In 1993 the Secretary's office took an average of 4.4 years. The office issued the same number of rules--three--in 1993 and 1999.
The Federal Aviation Administration showed the most significant drop in rulemaking productivity in the study. In 1993, the FAA issued 17 significant rules and took an average of eight to nine months (0.7 years) to complete the process. In 1999, the FAA issued only three rules, and took an average of three years to finish work on each, four times as long to complete less than one-sixth the workload.
Only the Federal Railroad Administration and the Federal Transit Administration showed improvement in the average time to complete rulemaking between 1993 and 1999. However, the FRA issued only two rules in each of the two years studied, and FTA issued two rules in 1993 and one rule in 1999.
The report goes on to say that the department routinely misses statutory deadlines for issuing rules. The report shows that the DOT's record was poor in 1993 and has improved only marginally since then. In 1993, the department completed only 12 of 29 rules mandated by Congress
(41.4 percent) and completed only four of the 29 by the mandated deadline (13.8 percent). In 1999, the department completed 21 of 43 such rules (48.8 percent) and met the deadline on 10 of them (23.2 percent). This is a dismal record.
The IG's report cites several reasons for these delays. In the case of Congressionally mandated rules, work is often delayed by a disagreement between Congress and the department over the content of the rule. The complexity of the rulemaking process also contributes to the problem. However, the report cites poor management by the modal administrators as a significant contributor to the lack of progress on new rules.
In its analysis of 54 completed rulemakings, the study that found rules languished an average of two years on the modal administrator's desk with no action taken. The report said in many cases the rulemaking process stalled because the administrator would not make a decision on whether a rule should advance or be terminated, did not consider the rule a priority, or waited for future events, such as the development of new technology, that would affect the rule.
When the modal administrator considers a rulemaking to be a priority, the process can move quickly. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration took less than one year to produce a rule providing grants to states with a legal blood alcohol limit of 0.08. Yet, NHTSA still has not completed action on a rule on the flammability of materials on school buses after working on it for 11 years. The report states that NHTSA has wanted to terminate the rule, but the Federal Transit Administration and the Deputy Secretary opposed terminating it. Even though the Deputy Secretary charged NHTSA to work with FTA to work out their differences, NHTSA has not worked on the rule for the past three years.
These rules affect public safety--children on school buses, passengers in airplanes, ships at sea, motorists at rail crossings, neighborhoods near gas pipelines. We cannot allow bureaucratic gridlock to put people's lives at risk.
To its credit, the DOT, according to this report, has accepted the IG's findings and is taking steps to improve its management of the rulemaking process.
I have discussed this matter with Sec. Rodney Slater and urged him to use these remaining months to take significant action to reduce or eliminate this backlog of pending rules and provide a clean slate for the next administration.
I am very pleased with Sec. Slater's firm commitment to follow through and press the modal administrators to put the rule making process into high gear.
In doing so, the Secretary can show the American people that government can work efficiently, can be responsive to their concerns, and can adopt the same attitude of compliance that it demands of the private sector it regulates.
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