Early Warning Reporting System Improvement Act of 2020

II 116TH CONGRESS 2D SESSION S. 4120 To enhance the early warning reporting requirements for motor vehicle manufacturers, and for other purposes. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES JULY 1, 2020 Mr. BLUMENTHAL (for Mr. MARKEY (for himself and Mr. BLUMENTHAL)) in- troduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Com- mittee 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 Representa- 1 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Early Warning Report- 4 ing System Improvement Act of 2020’’. 5 SEC. 2. ADDITIONAL EARLY WARNING REPORTING RE- 6 QUIREMENTS. 7 (a) IN GENERAL.—Section 30166(m) of title 49, 8 United States Code, is amended— 9 (1) in paragraph (3)— 10 VerDate Sep 11 2014 05:01 Jul 13, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S4120.IS S4120 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 2 •S 4120 IS (A) in subparagraph (C)— 1 (i) by striking ‘‘The manufacturer’’ 2 and all that follows through ‘‘shall report’’ 3 and inserting the following: 4 ‘‘(i) IN GENERAL.—The manufacturer 5 of a motor vehicle or motor vehicle equip- 6 ment, including the manufacturer of an 7 autonomous vehicle or an automated driv- 8 ing system, shall report’’; and 9 (ii) by adding at the end the fol- 10 lowing: 11 ‘‘(ii) INCIDENTS WITH INJURIES OR 12 FATALITIES.—If an incident described in 13 clause (i) involves a serious injury or fatal- 14 ity, the Secretary shall require the manu- 15 facturer to submit, as part of the incident 16 report under clause (i)— 17 ‘‘(I) each initial claim or notice 18 document that notified the manufac- 19 turer of the incident; 20 ‘‘(II) any police reports or other 21 documents describing or recon- 22 structing the incident; 23 VerDate Sep 11 2014 05:01 Jul 13, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S4120.IS S4120 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 3 •S 4120 IS ‘‘(III) any amendments or sup- 1 plements to the documents described 2 in subclause (I), except— 3 ‘‘(aa) medical documents 4 and bills; and 5 ‘‘(bb) property damage in- 6 voices or estimates; and 7 ‘‘(IV) the assessment of the man- 8 ufacturer of the circumstances that 9 led to the incident, including the anal- 10 ysis of the manufacturer with respect 11 to the claims or notices with respect 12 to allegations of a defect. 13 ‘‘(iii) REPORTING REQUIREMENTS.— 14 Notwithstanding section 579.21 of title 49, 15 Code of Federal Regulations (or a suc- 16 cessor regulation), no report under this 17 subsection shall be limited by model year.’’; 18 and 19 (B) by adding at the end the following: 20 ‘‘(D) SETTLEMENTS.—Notwithstanding 21 any order entered in a civil action restricting 22 the disclosure of information, a manufacturer of 23 a motor vehicle or motor vehicle equipment 24 shall comply with the requirements of this sub- 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 05:01 Jul 13, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S4120.IS S4120 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 4 •S 4120 IS section and any regulation promulgated under 1 this subsection.’’; 2 (2) in paragraph (4), by striking subparagraph 3 (C) and inserting the following: 4 ‘‘(C) DISCLOSURE.— 5 ‘‘(i) IN GENERAL.—The information 6 provided to the Secretary pursuant to this 7 subsection— 8 ‘‘(I) shall be disclosed publicly 9 unless— 10 ‘‘(aa) exempt from disclo- 11 sure under section 552(b) of title 12 5, subject to clause (ii); or 13 ‘‘(bb) the information is sub- 14 ject to an order entered in a civil 15 action restricting the disclosure 16 of information; and 17 ‘‘(II) shall be entered into a pub- 18 lic early warning reporting database 19 established by the Secretary in a man- 20 ner that is searchable by manufac- 21 turer name, vehicle or equipment 22 make and model name, model year, 23 and type of potential defect. 24 VerDate Sep 11 2014 05:01 Jul 13, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S4120.IS S4120 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 5 •S 4120 IS ‘‘(ii) INAPPLICABILITY OF CONFIDEN- 1 TIALITY PROVISIONS.—In administering 2 clause (i)(I), the Secretary shall not con- 3 sider section 552(b)(4) of title 5 to prevent 4 the public disclosure of— 5 ‘‘(I) production information re- 6 garding passenger motor vehicles; 7 ‘‘(II) information on incidents in- 8 volving death or serious injury; 9 ‘‘(III) numbers of property dam- 10 age claims; or 11 ‘‘(IV) aggregated numbers of 12 consumer complaints.’’; and 13 (3) by adding at the end the following: 14 ‘‘(6) USE OF EARLY WARNING REPORTS.—The 15 Secretary shall consider information gathered under 16 this section in proceedings described in sections 17 30118 and 30162.’’. 18 (b) REGULATIONS.—To promote the public avail- 19 ability of information provided to the Secretary of Trans- 20 portation under subsection (m) of section 30166 of title 21 49, United States Code, and the utility of that information 22 to inspection and investigation activities conducted by the 23 Secretary under that section, not later than 2 years after 24 the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall pro- 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 05:01 Jul 13, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S4120.IS S4120 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 6 •S 4120 IS mulgate regulations to carry out this section and the 1 amendments made by this section. 2 (c) NULLIFICATION OF EARLY WARNING REPORTING 3 CLASS DETERMINATION REGULATIONS.—On the effective 4 date of the regulations promulgated under subsection (b), 5 the regulations with respect to early warning reporting 6 class determinations contained in appendix C of part 512 7 of title 49, Code of Federal Regulations (as in effect on 8 that date), shall have no force or effect. 9 SEC. 3. IMPROVED NATIONAL HIGHWAY TRAFFIC SAFETY 10 ADMINISTRATION VEHICLE SAFETY DATA- 11 BASES. 12 (a) IN GENERAL.—Not later than 2 years after the 13 date of enactment of this Act, and after consultation with 14 frequent users of publicly available databases of the Sec- 15 retary of Transportation (referred to in this section as the 16 ‘‘Secretary’’), the Secretary shall improve public accessi- 17 bility to information on the publicly accessible vehicle safe- 18 ty databases of the National Highway Traffic Safety Ad- 19 ministration by revising the publicly accessible vehicle 20 safety databases— 21 (1) to improve organization and functionality, 22 including design features such as drop-down menus; 23 VerDate Sep 11 2014 05:01 Jul 13, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S4120.IS S4120 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 7 •S 4120 IS (2) to allow for data from all of the publicly ac- 1 cessible vehicle safety databases to be searched, sort- 2 ed, aggregated, and downloaded in a manner— 3 (A) consistent with the public interest; and 4 (B) that facilitates easy use by consumers; 5 (3) to provide greater consistency in presen- 6 tation of vehicle safety issues; 7 (4) to improve searchability about specific vehi- 8 cles and issues through standardization of commonly 9 used search terms and the integration of databases 10 to enable each of the databases to be simultaneously 11 searched using the same keyword search function; 12 and 13 (5) to ensure that each document, study, inves- 14 tigation, inspection, incident report, and other mate- 15 rials related to an incident that are created or ob- 16 tained by the National Highway Traffic Safety Ad- 17 ministration are made publicly available in a timely 18 manner that is searchable in databases by— 19 (A) manufacturer name, vehicle or equip- 20 ment make and model name, and model year; 21 (B) type of potential defect; 22 (C) number of injuries or fatalities; and 23 (D) any other element that the Secretary 24 determines to be in the public interest. 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 05:01 Jul 13, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S4120.IS S4120 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 8 •S 4120 IS (b) INSPECTION AND INVESTIGATION INFORMA- 1 TION.—The Secretary shall— 2 (1) provide public notice of each inspection or 3 investigation activity conducted by the Secretary 4 under section 30166 of title 49, United States Code; 5 and 6 (2) make each notice described in paragraph 7 (1), each written response by a manufacturer to 8 such a notice, and each notice of any enforcement 9 action or other action taken as a result of an inspec- 10 tion or investigation described in that paragraph— 11 (A) available to consumers on the Internet 12 not later than 5 days after the notice is issued 13 or the written response is received; and 14 (B) searchable by manufacturer name, ve- 15 hicle or equipment make and model name, 16 model year, system or component, and the type 17 of inspection or investigation being conducted. 18 Æ VerDate Sep 11 2014 05:01 Jul 13, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6301 E:\BILLS\S4120.IS S4120 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS