conduct of the pipeline hazardous materials safety agency in a way you could say that this hearing began twenty two years ago with the explosion of the gasoline pipeline in mounds view minnesota just outside my district when a gasoline pipeline had lost its cathartic protection there was a dent in the line that that had been there for years and noticed and at that point there was a failure of gasoline leaked from the pipeline into the ground there was no shut off valve there was no sensor to detect the drop in pipeline pressure the gasoline leak apparently for days in the fumes worked their way up through the soil to the street level and at two a m a car driving appropriately but through the neighborhood but with a loose tail pipe that dragged on the ground spark ignited the fumes that exploded the street into a ball of fire buckled and melted the pavement and the homeowner mother and her six year old saw the fireball heard the sound went out on their front porch and were incinerated as was their house national transportation safety board an extensive increase found the faders the rupture in the pipeline loss of cathartic protection corrosion that resulted the failure to have frequent automatic sensors for pipe pipeline pressure loss and poor leakage and that the agency had no measures in place no procedures in place and insufficient numbers of inspectors both at the federal level and those that are funded by the federal government in cooperation with the state i was chair the  held very extensive hearings into the causes of preventive measures that should be taken recommended steps to be taken but what struck me at the time was that there was not a culture of safety at the pipeline safety agency at the very top person in a straight or the agency had no clear idea of what safety means inspection for inspect doors the federal state level and where they were funded but over time when the attention was lost and the and the agency continued to operate in what i can only describe today as has deteriorated condition of public vigilance safety and is not a one time  snapshot safety is continuing vigilance i lived it personally when i worked in the mines when i was going to college and i worked in a concrete ready mix  concrete block factory i worked on construction zones street highway construction it's a matter of mindset of safety and of vigilance and this agency has lost its way and along the way has developed a very cozy relationship with the industry it regulates oversight investigations role and heritage of this committee goes back to one nine hundred fifty nine when then speaker sam rayburn as my predecessor over there and portrait in the corner john a special investigating committee in the federally highway program to uncover waste fraud abuse as it turned out criminal activity in the early days of construction of the interstate highway system the result of those investigations over a period of six years resulted in thirty six federal and state and private contractor personnel being sent to state and federal prisons some of them are still there at the beginning of those investigations no stated internal audit review procedures in its highway program as a result of those investigations every state that adopted such procedures and has continued to refine them when the work of that committee was expanded into other areas of the committees full committees jurisdiction because we know that maintaining oversight of the executive branch agencies is the responsibility of the congress we pass the laws they have forced them it's our job to make sure that they're doing the public's business and we'll continue to pursue that responsibility films as culture appears plagued by believe the agency should make things as easy as possible for the industry that it should be regulated i have asked the staff since since the time we regain the majority to take a special careful thorough review of this agency based on my previous experience and i've already describe the investigation undertaken by our committee staff and also by the inspector general  uncovered a shocking number of failures by the agency to follow federal law in hazmat regulations outright neglect and regulating the transportation of hazardous materials we also heard from numerous employees those with a conscience and with a concern for the public interest that their agency was entirely as i suspect that they have experienced over the years too cozy with the industry this is a theme we've uncovered in previous investigations in our coast guard hearing where there was a similar relationship between the coast guard and lockheed martin who were told to self regulate we s t last year in the inquiry into the failure of f a a to oversee safety at major airlines including subject of a very significant hearing again they f a a inspector staff was told that the industry is our customer this is safety is not a customer relationship it's an arm's length relationship and if the air is the f a a treats an airline as the customer and the customer isn't satisfied with the oversight service they're getting then they can ask for changes and they did in the principal maintenance inspector was pulled from the southwest ticket just as similar actions occurred at the coast guard the result of our coast guard hearings and grin of the inspector general's very thorough legislation to change the way safety is conducted and taken out the customer service initiative is no place in safety that doesn't mean that there should be an adversarial relationship but it does mean there must be an arm's length relationship between the regulated and the regulators what we found is that firms almost never turns down a request from  a special permit a special permit is an exemption from regulations to carry hazardous material that normally would be prohibited by federal regulation this raises the issue and i'll ask the inspector general and the undersecretary to address the question of why there should continue to be ruled by exception why there should be special permits why shouldn't there a permitting structure that govern this matter rather than each case be considered five thousand such applications in a two year period and less than two percent were denied of applicants for special permits and that is required by federal regulations they are defined their own regulations they have no idea in this agency where the special permits are being used if you don't want it are you issued a special permit and you don't know where they're being used then than it's virtually impossible to monitor and enforce those permits furthermore the records are in a palling conditions the vast majority of special permit applications are committee staff and i reviewed there was no safety analysis if there was no justification in the records the agency realized almost entirely on self certification by the applicant that is a formula for failure as we saw in the coast guard and the f further the agency grants special permits to industry trade associations which then can distribute those promised any of its members those trade associations are not safety agencies they're advocacy groups they're perfectly legal but they're not safety responsibility agencies this practice defies common sense there is no way to hold a trade association accountable under the law and often themselves and response to our questions has no idea who's using a particular special permit furthermore they operate all by themselves agencies were opposed to granting of exceptions and yet they were ignored also issues approvals and permits to agents of foreign governments without any evaluation of the fitness of the foreign company on july fourth two thousand and nine as year four people were killed in north carolina when a truck loaded with chinese fireworks exploded was unable to provide critical documentation on this permit they often ignore the concerns of their own force and personnel numerous staff told our committee investigators that their warning and advisories have repeatedly been ignored by senior management senior manager told our committee investigators i take in force personnel views with a grain of salt that is reprehensible this agency needs a house cleaning them set itself admits that sixty to ninety percent of hazmat accidents go unreported and the agency has no data driven base it was a universally view expressed within the agency that their data is inaccurate incomplete inferentially useless that is acceptable there are volumes more information but it's clear this agency's relationship with the industry it regulates needs to be completely overhauled current state is unacceptable to say the least the industry will say oh you know we haven't had any fatalities of course there were those three tombstone mentality you wait until people are dead and then you start acting that's not right twenty years ago i recommended more inspection safety mindset higher standards within this agency is deteriorated from there were today's hearing is marks a turning point in the history of that agency the deputy secretary  kerry has taken action soon as he became aware of these findings and those of the inspector general have he's here i'm grateful to the inspector general mr scoble for his persistent work of special permits approvals for hazardous materials transportation practice this fall outside of the normal regulations and as the chairman has documented there certainly a lot of improvements need to be made of things especially in the record keeping and  and those areas and that's what this hearing is all about today to talk about those those issues so i look forward to hearing from films the deputy secretary on how they plan to improve the process including an explanation of the action plan that you've developed to take care of the some of these problems and also look forward to hearing from the institute of the makers of explosive explosives about advances in the safety of transportation blasting materials essential to mining and construction industries given the inherent risks associated with transporting materials designed to explode the industry does have an outstanding safety record the use of multi purpose bulk trucks or m b t's allows the industry to move a wide range of materials necessary for blasting operations  in the same vehicle thereby reducing the total number of vehicles carrying hazmat over the highways and remarkably these m b t's have never caused a single injury or fatality in transportation and i think we need to strike a balance in hazmat transportation policy between making sure that appropriate safeguards are in place while the same time being careful that we do not unnecessary burden the workforce industries of our economy are safe and efficient transportation of hazardous materials is enormously important to the national economy and our way of life twenty eight percent or nearly a third of all time miles of annual freight on our roads rails waterways and air cargo is considered a hazardous material the shipments include everything from heating oil gasoline fertilizer drinking water chemicals and medical materials diagnose to used to treat sixty six folks it's absolutely necessary that we are able to safely and quickly deliver a wide range of said it before but point zero zero zero zero two percent result in injury and about two point zero zero zero zero one three fourteen percent of movements result in a fatality there are about four times as many deaths caused by lightning strikes annually than by hazardous material transportation accidents and as i said this is a remarkable safety record and i think this is the measurement that we need to use to determine what we're doing if it's right or it's wrong not how many permits  rejected i think using that as a measurement is a is a false sense of what an agency is doing and and industry is doing and how it's performing of course when you're talking about moving dangerous goods that are going to be risk and they're going to be accident no way to completely eliminate risk what we need to do is make careful choices about where we can best use our resources to minimize the risks and i know that simpson is very short handed and very difficult for the number of people they have to to move forward on some of these things but we've got to make the effort we've got to do what's necessary to make sure that they do keep the records that they are that they do have a process in place for the special permits as much for the safety as is fo industry so that they know when they're going for to apply for a permit they know what the process is and they can count on some consistency when they're doing that we don't want to not the system up and create red tape that will cease to be effective for the all to want to say happy birthday and thank you for your service on this committee and say you the guru of transportation and also i want to think ranking member mike up a hole in this hearing today on hazardous materials safety last decade they have been over one hundred and seventy thousand incidents involving the transportation of hazardous material resulting in one hundred thirty four but tell it is two thousand seven hundred eighty three injures  than six hundred thirty one million in property damage more disturbed in the pipeline and has this material safety administration has only thirty five inspectors to cover over three hundred thousand hazmat related entities others have expressed their concern with the transport of these then used material and it's my guess that once they hear about what the pipeline and has materials safety administration have done or more important have not done and i'm sure they will be even more concerned there is such a lack of oversight in appropriate level of corporate influence during the bush administration that many agencies have become dysfunctional this is why i am pleased to see that the transportation and infrastructure committee making the effort to put that proper oversight to the agencies within its jurisdiction in may of this year i feel it subcommittee hearing on the department of transportation has this material safety program with all of the stakeholders to learn what instances it does not follow up on reporting yes in this and it does not even review whether a carrier should be registered to transport has made it material let me say that again the agency does not look at its own data o accidents and incidents it does not follow up on reporting instances and it does not even review whether a carrier should be registered to transport has made it material grants and in law minima waivers from import safety regulation is improved that will look no oversight on permitting holders so it is so important that you inspectors that i cannot understand how they can begin to inspect three hundred thousand ha introduced to make sure that the complying with the regulations the terms of the way the the subsequent investigation by committee staff and the d o t inspector general confirms what the so committee hearing from witnesses and have a hearing and they plan to fix this serious problems with that i want to welcome today's panelists and thank you for joining us i'm looking forward to hearing their testimony thank you mr chairman holding this hearing and thank you for your like to thank the witnesses for being here representing the state of west virginia in looking at the states that are listed by consumption or of explosive materials our state's number two number one being wyoming number two being west virginia for i think rather obvious reasons but in west virginia if you want to build a road you need explosive materials if you want to create a mine you need explosive materials so it's extremely important  that these materials are safely transported to the mine site of the construction site and it's done on a very frequent basis obviously in our state traveling all of the roads not just the major highways with some of those little ones going up  to where a lot of folks live in the in the hollows and and the more rural parts of our state so i'm very interested in this report i'm interested in to see what your plans going to be going forward to address some of the  gentleman for her statement and yes wyoming with the powder river basin coal mining on operations and west virginia with the highway and coal operations we minnesota in my district in our mining  industry uses three hundred thousand pounds a day of explosives to extract the iron ore from rock harder than granite that fuels our steel industry million pounds a year of explosives on the roadways other members wish to be heard missed the boat on thank you mr chairman i was going carrying explosives so carrying all kinds of hazardous material i've been involved in in the issue of pairing because if we've had spills in our los angeles there you're talking about twelve million people in that is very very important for us to understand whether the fire department as black are doing is is consistent that they can read it as they are responding to an incident or whether or not the railroad is maintaining the lines that they are no axes because of hairline cracks in their rails i mean all those come to play so what i the concern is whether or not the agencies have enough budget to have enough personnel to be able to do all the follow of that is going to be required to consistently apply to all of the hazardous materials being carded so that there is a better safety and while i understand that there haven't been very many reported what about the unreported accidents so those are things that i would like to hear mr chair and i would be able to have a lot more of a how is the interest in thank you sir mark yes thank you mr chairman and staff for holding this important meeting in my own district we have dealt with two tanker trucks crashing into the pooter river in recent weeks the pewter river provides drinking water for two of the major towns in my district fort collins and greeley the first spill about three weeks ago dumped five thousand gallons of tar into the river and e t a contractors had to be brought in with cranes to lift out large sections of asphalt out of the river  within two weeks a second tanker crashed into the same river releasing seven thousand pounds of liquid asphalt and gallons of diesel fuel incidentally because crews were still cleaning up the first spill they were able to contain the second spill rather quickly both drivers were cited with careless driving in the main contractor is no longer allowed to have asphalt trucks on the highway until it can prove to the colorado d o t that it has a safety plan in place fortunately in this situation there was not a great threat to public health however i cannot imagine the repercussions if the asphalt had been a more hazardous chemical i applaud the efforts of those who have helped contain the effects of the spills into the the river and i look forward to discussing and establishing increased oversight of the pipeline and hazardous materials the administration thank you for that very personal touch to this duty that you have in leading this committee in effective oversight of the united states department of transportation pipeline and has just material safety administration as you know him say is the leading agency responsible for regulating and monitoring the movement materials it was created in two thousand and four under the norman y moneta research and special programs improvement act and was preceded by the research the special programs administration the role offenses clear to protect the american people b programs as well as findings from the committee steps recent investigation i'm very concerned that since there is not fulfilling its role i'm most concerned with the revelation that since it has failed to maintain an arm's length relationship with industry into doing so has lost sight of its main focus which is public safety now it is our responsibility as a committee of jurisdiction to examine these issues and ensure the fence has what it takes to need to do the job that was created to do ensure safety s i really don't have in a statement but this is a very very important and serious hearings with all the kind of material that is being moved i would just hope that we could and i'm just waiting to see if i can stay here long enough because i have another meeting to listen to your testimony but texas is a big state and she will know and we moved tons and tons of stuff all over the highways and just because we haven't had an accident hearing today because it's a very very important hearing thank you so much michel thank you thank you i think all of you in preparation for this landmark occasion i went out and wrote seventy five miles over the weekend bike not on my car and if there are no other requests we'll begin with inspector general school mr chairman ranking member schuster members of the committee thank you for inviting me here today to discuss films a special permits and approvals program my testimony focuses on weaknesses we've identified and how fans authorizes and oversees these exemptions to hazmat regulations weaknesses that call for a fundamental rethinking of fences approach as currently structured since a special permits and approvals program carries little assurance that hazmat will be safely transported this is evidenced by films this practice of granting permits without full knowledge of applicant safety histories and the agency's record of inattention to longstanding safety issues first films it does not look at applicants incident and compliance records when granting renewing or allowing party to permits we found this to be the case even when applicants had multiple incidents and enforcement violations four years prior to receiving their permit for example fans are granted a special permit to a company to operate bulk explosive vehicles even though that company had fifty three prior incidents nine of which were serious vehicle rollover is of particular concern is fins its practice of granting special permits to trade associations effectively giving a blanket authorization t thousands of member companies without any assessment of their safety histories or need for the permit fims also grants special permits and approvals without the really evaluating applications finn's is reviews of sixty five percent of the ninety nine permits and all fifty six approvals we looked at were either incomplete lacked evidence of an equal level of safety finding or simply non existent further offenses risk based oversight criteria omits a key rating factor that should drive compliance reviews that is whether a company holds a special permit or approval however our visits to twenty seven companies found that more than half did not comply with the terms of their permits some officials did not know which permits applied to their location and some were unaware that they even had a permit to abide by fences lack of coordination with f a a f r a n f m c s a exacerbates these weaknesses these agencies may have critical safety data on applicants seeking a permit yet we found finn's a did not coordinate ninety percent of the new and party two permits or any of the renewals we reviewed finn's also did not coordinate most of the emergency permits we review even though the law specifically requires that coordination the second vulnerability we identified as fans is inattention to longstanding safety issues most finn's ignored safety concerns regarding transportable explode explosives concerns first raised by its own office of hazardous materials and enforcement over two years ago we called for films at to take action on this in our july two thousand and nine management advisory this is not the first time longstanding safety concerns have gone unaddressed there has been intense debate among fans of f a a n t s b and other aviation stakeholders on the safe transport lithium batteries by air last year a lithium battery incidents involving air carriers occurred two of which were life threatening and we have seen six so far this year yet films that has not stepped up its coordination efforts it did not explain how an equal level of safety would be met or provide safety measures for the pilots is working with f a a to propose changes to the department's recently amended rule requiring safety measures for air transport of lithium batteries however these efforts only began after serious incidents and high level departmental attention in closing i want to recognize secretary la hood and deputy secretary pocari for their leadership in directing f statement rest many other fundamental weaknesses we've identified the secretary and deputy secretaries continued support will be critical to successfully implement these plans actions and achieve the intent of the program that is to ensure permit holders safely transport hazardous materials this concludes my statement mr chairman i'd be happy to answer any questions you or members of the subcommittee of the committee may have thank you very much inspector general scoble your entire document will be included in the committee hearing record at this point it is a comprehensive detail and analysis of the of this agency and its shortcomings and the and your recommendations for improvements will get to those in the best deputy safety administration's special permits and approval program i have been briefed by your staff on a number of serious deficiencies in and concerns with the hazardous material program including a special permits program i've also been  briefed by the department's office of inspector general regarding the hazmat special permits program and the advisory that the office the inspector general issued on special permits for explosive mixing trucks i've also been briefed on a two thousand and eight internal review of fences safety culture regarding the perception of the agency's employees as to the safety commitment of the agency mr chairman members of the committee i share your concern that the agency as off track on his primary primary mission safety let me be clear secretary la hood night regard transportation safety is the department's primary mission and we're taking action to get fans are back on on that mission i'd like to report briefly on the actions we've taken to begin this process and to address some of the immediate concerns first the department has a detailed action plan which you've been provided copies of to address the safety concerns raised by the inspector general about the special permits and approval program before i discuss the specifics of that i'd like to also briefly describe the importance of the special permits program to our overall regulatory program  issues special permits under the authority provided in the federal hazardous materials transportation law special permits allow the industry to quickly adopt and utilize new technologies and new ways of doing business that may not be accommodated in the regulations t also issues special permits on an emergency basis to facilitate emergency transportation such as to authorize the transportation of supplies to areas affected by natural or manmade disasters by law special permits must provide a level of safety equivalent to that required by the regulations or a finding that is consistent with the public interest and federal hazardous materials law if required level of safety does not exist every year t issues approximately one hundred twenty new special permits authorizes approximately one hundred modifications to existing special permits and issues approximately eleven hundred renewables new special permits may be authorized for up to two years at which time they be may be renewed for a period of up to four years obviously this is an important part of the program we recognize there are deficiencies and we're working hard to address these deficiencies with the detailed action plan that submitted  briefly we've taken the fall during actions one conducted a comprehensive top to bottom review of current written special permit policies procedures and practices to ensure that the safety  criteria policy and procedures used to make the legally required equivalent level of safety determinations and revise those procedures were necessary three develop enhanced written procedures to provide for better coordination for the issuance of permits with the federal motor carrier safety administration the f a a the federal railroad administration and the coast guard for to clarify fims a policy to assure the trade associations are not holders special permits and five by february the pipeline and hazardous materials safety administration will have a business plan in place to create a centralized data analysis office to improve the data quality in the information technology systems that are currently in place this new technology will greatly enhance the productivity accountability and overall safety performance responsibilities of the hazardous materials office of special permits the new system will include an online application that will not be processed into a completed a mechanism for alerting holders a special permits ninety days in advance of the expiration of the permit and a notification system to communicate safety concerns an additional part of the action plan was developed to address the concerns raised in the oh i g advisory related to explosive mixing trucks it includes issuing a notice of proposed modification of the special permits for explosive mixing trucks to provide additional safety conditions including vehicle inspection and maintenance enhanced driver training incident reporting and investigation fire prevention and emergency response plans it also notifies special permit holders of the intent to evaluate each holder's fitness to operate these trucks these stakeholder responses are due in september includes conducting fitness reviews of current special permit holders to assure compliance with the permit terms and a review of expired permits contracting for an independent risk assessment of explosive mixing trucks and transportation reviewing documentation including safety assessments and analysis to ensure the documentation supports the issuance of a special permit and rescinding any special permit authorized for a holder who is considered unfit to safely transport these materials our action plan will of volves and update as necessary as i mentioned i was briefed late last week by your staff on the findings of the committee investigation  identified specific concerns these are concerns that the secretary and i share including that our data analysis capability is totally inadequate to ensure that the hazmat program is data driven and able to focus on the greatest hazards i want to assure the committee that we will work with you to address all of these important issues that you so so diligently raised the rest of that is submitted for the record i would conclude by mentioning the lithium battery regulation the committee's expressed interest in the notice of proposed rule making on lithium batteries it's clearly a very important issue the department is forwarded to o m b notice  proposed rule making yesterday for review on that and we'll continue moving on that as well finally and perhaps most importantly safety culture which mr chairman you clearly listed in your opening remarks reestablishing a safety culture is perhaps the top priority it is an ongoing effort we expect that within the next ninety days the employees will once again view the organization and its leadership is strongly committed to a safety mission the fact that secretary la hood has specifically detailed me to oversee this i think is an indication of how serious we take this we will again revise procedures we will update requirements we will institute new rule makings where appropriate our first priority is and will continue to be safety we will not tolerate agency actions that undermine our commitment to safety and we will rescind or den renewal of permits for unsafe actors thank you with that i'll be happy to answer any questions thank you very much especially for those closing comments about addressing the need for a culture of safety at the  agency i would suggest a re education session for them there are some very good actors and very good conscientious personnel and there are others who need to be retrained who look to the trade association representatives for guidance not for their leaders not to their leadership or guidance that chain has to be broken and that will take secretaries permits however if you address that issue mr chairman no permits will be issued to associations we are in the process of as part of the action plan of making it clear that permits will authorities we are in the process of and will i'll modify terminate whatever is necessary to make clear that each of those permits and every permit is to an individual company not to a trade association i think that  report back to us when you've completed that i'll be happy to do that in the opening chapter of the law governing transportation  materials section fifty one hundred once states the purpose of this chapter is protect against the risks to life property in the environment that are inherent in the transportation of hazardous material intrastate interstate and foreign commerce that is a rather unequivocal statement yet the trade industry witness says the law says  that regulates against unreasonable risk that's a mis statement of the law in section fifty one zero three general regulatory authority in the subsection designating material as hazardous secretary shall designate material in lists the various types of materials  as hazardous when the secretary determines that transporting the material in commerce in a particular amount in form may pose an unreasonable risk to health and safety or property yes some recommendations for amendment of that  chairman if if there's something that we're not doing there consistent with the overall safety mission we will modify it and do whatever we need to do that's that's the current statutory law anguage the form that may pose an unreasonable risk to health and safety or property that's not the way safety is conducted or directed in the f a a act that's correct mr chairman safety in the opening measurable this is a very subjective statement in law and we have the opportunity authorization the surface transportation law to make appropriate changes so i'd like your attention to that issue and report back to i'll be happy to do that mr chairman and it is again safety is a culture is also an ongoing process there is not an end point to it  and in many ways the federal aviation administration is the leader in the department and that the i should point out that secretary la hood has directed us to take other measures beyond the subject of the hearing today to institute safety as a department wide cultural imperative and when we say safety is our number one priority these are specific measures to make sure that that's the case across the board i welcome that  inspector general scovel why special permits why the modifications why one hundred twenty new special permit applications every year why some one hundred modifications from your testimony to existing so i think maybe that's the department's testimony to existing special permits why eleven hundred renewals it seems to me that there is an inadequate structure to begin with it seems to me that there is haphazard a case by case approach to the regulation of safety in this agency chairman we've had our audit ongoing for the last fourteen months into films those special permits and approvals program it quickly became obvious to us first from the sheer number of special permits and approvals fifty five hundred plus permits one hundred eighteen thousand plus approvals that it appeared that the innovations in the advancements in the proved means that industry has come up with for the transportation of hazardous materials has essentially swallowed the body of law that's contained in the hazardous materials regulations in the code of federal regulations the department hasn't had a structure in place a strategy in place to bring in the techniques and advancements represented by the special permits and approvals to bring them into law as as a result exemptions to the procedures and processes specified in the regulations have been granted in the form of these federal permits and approvals one of our strongest recommended recommendations to the committee and to the department is that it established a strategy for methodically in a disciplined way bringing the current technology current practice industry practice into regulations so that the entire practice of special permits and and approvals can be brought under control that's a very  important very strong suggestion and one that we will follow up on this is a special permit issued by the hype on hazardous materials safety administration  was granted to a particular company plus eighty four other cargo carriers it authorized transportation in commerce of ha materials in an inaccessible location aboard an aircraft inaccessible meaning the crew can't reach that place to put out a fire we heard this in the value jet crash with the with the oxygen bottles carried loosely on board not protected individually not secured and placed inside a tire that the aircraft was carrying to another destination and when they exploded that tire caught fire and provided fuel to the fire brought the aircraft not and lost lives the crew  to access that compartment they were not aware that those oxygen bottles were on board they were not aware that on board that they were not secured or isolated one from the other and that was what fifteen plus years ago you would think that somebody had learned a lesson in the meantime apparently not explosives flammable poison corrosive covered by this special permit and it specifically says in any inaccessible compartment how can they justify that you talked to them about the mr goble we did not we know that that's a particular concern of n t s b is with regard to the transport of lithium batteries in inaccessible locations aboard cargo aircraft as the committee may know cargo aircraft aren't required to have fire person suppression systems and in fact the standard fire suppression system aboard any passenger aircraft isn't capable of suppressing most lithium battery fires should they happen in a passenger aircraft it's a particular concern and one of n t s b ski recommendations in our view is that when lithium batteries are to be carried inaccessible locations that they be carried in fire resistant containers n t s b has been fighting this battle for ten years it's still not satisfactorily resolved in our view that's just unacceptable there are many others all conclude with this i'll conclude for the moment on this one issued  november ninth two thousand and six this this emergency emergency special permit authorizes transportation in congress of nitric acid cetera et cetera it waves the requirements for marking for labeling for shipping the for shipping papers ways required for aviation stowage requirement it waives a requirement for a notice to the pilot in command in hundred seventy three nitric acid carried aboard an aircraft on a pan am airline aircraft result in an emergency landing in boston and three crew were killed had many fatalities or only a few it's only rare then try being one of the family members try putting yourself in the position of those who've lost a loved one or heels of what the chairman said that there has been haphazard the process hasn't been in place that needs to be uncovered a lot of short comings and failings sims and its record keeping and the like but overall i don't know that i've seen it can you assess the overall safety record within the hazmat materials movement industry with the sis and the ids office on the overall record mr schuester i can't i can't speak to the overall record of the industry as a whole the focus of our recent audit has been the special permits and approvals program administered by itself we have found serious deficiencies in the program design execution of the special permits and approval program that leads us to question whether frankly whether there has been the exercise of due diligence in that particular office with infants and the safety culture or the understanding of safety culture within that office our my my recent work wouldn't qualify me to speak to industry practice however the simi that would be an important part of the aggies role is t mention something about the special permits that they have the advances in technology improvements in industry have swallowed up the law can you be more specific than it sounds like a positive well it sounds like the laws lagging way behind a need to be changed because there have been advancements in the industry can you address that more specifically yes or and in fact i can give you an example the hazardous materials regulation specifies a procedure for carrying certain hazmat in rail tank cars in fact the process for that that specified in the regulation has been overtaken to incorporate the new technology rail companies still need to apply for and renew special permits to use the latest technology instead of the old one to return to your earlier question sir about practice within the industry i can say from our experience with trade associations and the agencies practice of granting special permits to trade associations that those bodies have not been diligent across the board either in keeping their members up to date on what the permits and tail indeed even whether certain members are the recipients through their trade association of permits to begin with and we've had experience in our field visits with  companies that told us in fact that they had recently been informed in kind of a good news bad news phone call from their trade association good news oh that practice that you've been engaged in for some time now caring has met in a particular manner  we forgot to tell you you've got a special permit so you may be covered bad news there may be a team of o y g auditors on the way to check and see how you're carrying it out so i suppose that's an indicator of some sort o of special permits and approvals we do record we do recognize this as we work through the action plan that at this point it's rather high level it's got a list of actions it's got a timeline for carrying those out of course we recognize it a work in progress the department need to add detail to it they'll have to tag resources to actions they'll have to recognize limitations and develop strategies to overcome those the chairman question the deputy secretary on an omission from the action plan regarding a plan to address special permits issued to trade associations frankly it's it's not clear in my mind that films or the department is going to follow up with all five thousand plus individual members of trade associations who may have derivative lee received special permits in order to the agency basically has to follow up with an individual fitness determination in the case of every single company and we hope the department will commit to that level of effort and that's going to obviously take resources and likely just one final question the resources in place whether the e i don't i guess that's not a fair question they're not in place whether they're human resources or technological advances sest these are going to take a lot more personnel or can you overcome some of the shortcomings by technology it'll take a combination of two mr schuester certainly technology better data systems are required the deputy secretary acknowledged that in his statement to the committee it's going to take time and a strategy frankly saw some sizable number of those special permit holders that have received their permits supposedly through their trade associations a good number of those aren't engaged in those practices at all and as we've learned in our field visit it looks like some of those can be can be sliced off the top there will be some number however who are left who are engaged in the practice the agency hasn't done an individual fitness determination in the cases of those companies and they need to get to it but he has to backtrack a little bit he said there are some belong to seven of the twelve trade associations we found that ten of those eighteen were not performing the activity in the special permit so not applicable they might be cut off from the permit no further review needed for companies were not located at the address provided by their association association clearly not on the ball they didn't know fins or doesn't know that needs to be updated three companies three of the eighteen had compliance issues we found regarding shipping papers training security plans and these are essential parts of any comprehensive hazmat program two companies didn't know that a special permit applied to their activities sir basically we found that one company out of the eighteen appeared to be in compliance with the terms and conditions of a special permit thank you very much dictum has been that safety begins in the corporate boardroom not in the regulatory agencies not in this committee not in the congress begins the corporate board they have the first responsibility airline executives have that first responsibility but the role of safety and aviation goes back to one thousand nine hundred twenty six and herbert hoover when he was secretary of commerce in the in more in the interest of developing aviation as a commercial activity than for safety of personnel it was there was only the pilot there was no passenger air service in those days but he initiated the first aviation safety rule making of the federal government in one thousand nine hundred eighty six as undersecretary later secretary of commerce in those days it was not uncommon for a wing to fall off an aircraft in flight it was not uncommon for an engine to fall off the aircraft in flight bad manufacturing but it went back to the  corporate structure of being safe before you put an aircraft out in flight so there is and there are examples in  explosives material transportation the safe boardrooms of the culture of safety i've visited one over the past weekend in my district where they  typically handle three hundred thousand pounds of explosives a day during the mining years they're very meticulous the supervisor drivers they put them through training and retraining procedures they have work to perfect the transport vehicles themselves there there is talk with every one of the drivers individually apart and away from the company  management they're doing their very best but they question the regulatory structure that is in place they're doing what they think is the best practice  might represent only ten to forty percent of all incidents that are actually occurring that would mean that we're missing from sixty percent that is twenty six thousand incidents a year to ninety percent that is one hundred fifty one thousand incidents a year our data base reflects only seventeen thousand incidents a year from two thousand and six to june two thousand and nine there were one thousand four hundred fifty unreported and only seven enforcement actions my staff use a strong were term a nation and i don't want to use that i think everybody you know the leadership should own whether someone should be terminated but i do think it should be some kind of a shake up  move in the shares or what has happened in the agency because i understand that there's been contact with the companies letting them know investigations going on and you know what is it that people in the agencies need to understand that safety didn't have anything to do with who is in the administration everybody need to do their job it's an excellent question ma'am first it starts at the top as deputy secretary i am directly engaged in this i will stay engaged i'm not going away it is a process that as the inspector general pointed out as we go forward with the action plan we'll get into more and more detail building a culture of safety and keeping that culture safety the agency is going to require that message from the top we have  we will shortly have a nominee as administrator that's an important part of the puzzle the working relationship between the special permits process the in for process our sister agencies within d o t and referrals all of those need to be fixed and will be and we will make the organizational and personnel changes necessary  lives and for our condo me but we are committed to doing this safely it is i think clear that we took our eye off the ball at some point we are focused like a laser on it the district whether it was the elected officials i mean this is the issues that come up they're concerned they want to know and they want to know that we're doing our job and we have the oversight so i'm very interested in what of special permits that it is difficult to keep up with changing technology and the state of the art and at the same time as the chairman pointed out the level of safety and the requirements for safety that bar is getting higher with with time as it should i look forward to working with you through the authorization process because it really is an opportunity to fundamentally re evaluate where we are now where we should be and how that authorization can be one of the mechanisms to get there and stand it's only thirty five employees and it's not that i'm interested in ribbon up but we want to know that we have the appropriate number and we can use the new technology staffing is certainly a part of it data is a very important part of it the any safety process we have safety management systems and you have a culture of safety you can't do that without the proper data and mining and analyzing that data correctly we are way behind the curve on that that is clearly one of the most important parts of the effort here thank you mr inspector general and thank you again for your leadership in this area and you've done a good due diligence job in keeping us informed and doing the oversight that is needed and i guess my question to you in listening to the staff they indicate it was like eight serious violators that have you know when we did the research they really have ballet to all of the ruse what can we do to flag the today as we speak ms brown and i'd have to consult with my staff and probably committee staff as well to understand those individual cases however if i can generalize by saying that as the deputy secretary has acknowledge d proper acquisition of data proper use of that data is a problem with fins as that problem is fixed and i'm very confident that that through the department's leadership it will be that violators  describe can be identified at that point there needs to be a very careful a very diligent effort to make sure that as part of the risk based oversight system that films alike all modes in  t must employ that those violators are flag for further compliance reviews and if necessary any permits or whatever are terminated suspended addressed in the appropriate fashion as provided for  not yet ma'am and the department excel itself has acknowledged that both in terms of staff perhaps perhaps numbers i don't want to prejudge that but in terms of staff outlook or safety culture their training most certainly because in all fairness some of these practices that we highlighted in our statement for the committee today developed many years ago for instance the oldest trade associations special permit that we identify dates back to february  four and it's become a practice apparently that nobody has questioned until now so you know the current crew in special permits and approvals they've been working with what they've been given they certainly need to be re educated in of water treatment plants that we have and others and years ago i went to one of the chemical companies to see how they were transporting chlorine and at the time the transport tubs that were plastic were not double wall they were beginning to get into double walls well that poses a great question a great concern because they travel by truck to get into these areas after the unloading from the  two long distances are you in any way shape or form aware of anything that they're doing and transportation of chlorine  gases ma'am i'm not personally aware of any changes in the transportation of chlorine gas this is what i'd like to do is actually get that information to you and provided to the committee it would be very helpful because i work with the council the government and three of them represent probably about seventy some odd cities out of the eighty five in los angeles county alone in the are all in a very very concerned about any release is in their area because it's so compact the other question i have is  the hazmat placards on rail cars that's been an issue in my communities for the last fifteen twenty years that i know of some railroad companies supposedly are looking to get rid of the hazardous material placards or railroads and keeping them then how are the hazmat folks being able to respond what is on that train ma'am the placard ng is an important part of the safety process knowing as you point out what's   go back and check that and report to the committee ok it seems to me there was some discussion particular in this committee some couple years ago in regard to the viability of being able to do away with them because of the terrorism issue that they could target those particular cars and so that that was what had brought that particular issue but i'd really appreciate if this of this whole committee would be able to get that information and i'm assuming that you work with the local entities like a company and the public utilities deficiencies we have right now is actually gathering that kind of data to make sure that we have comprehensive information on incidents that may not otherwise be reported we know that's one of the activities that we have to do a better job on and we're talking about any first responders police or fire and so forth as part of our examination of special permit or approval holders we visited twenty seven companies in the field and we found that fifty nine percent of them were not in compliance with at least some of the terms of their special permits and those special permits specified the type of signage or placard thing that would be required for that mode of transportation and that particular has hazardous materials and  the general area where one of the b n a staff cars trains would go by he said he couldn't identify the hazardous placards so to me that that shows that there is no cooperation between them to be able to help standardize does so that  big recognize and then the last question very quickly is budget and personnel while i know that they're short there's not that many inspectors that you have what will help to be able to ensure that we continue to focus on public safety as you correctly point out ma'am there are budgetary implications to the yes we're looking at that right now both personnel issues the information technology needs  and there's a substantial cost involved with that in the conversations i've had with the secretary on this topic he's made it very clear that safety is paramount that we need to as we're working through the budget  process on a multi year basis need to make sure that that's reflected in our priorities we're in the process of sorting that out right now thank you madam chair and i think that would be very very good information for the subcommittee thank you thank we're going to stand in informal recess for about thirty minutes we have three though and we're going to start with my friend when we come back ok all right we're in for more recess general proceed this is speaker mr hefner was a congressman for twenty four years and he was a congressman that was beloved by the people of the district because he never forgot where he came from he came to north carolina having grown up in alabama is the son of a sharecropper he headed you have given to him by god to sing music and he came to north carolina as a gospel singer singer very successful and had never run for office before he ran for congress procedures the f a a made that request in two thousand and five august two thousand and five it took nearly a year befor undertake compliance testing their airlines has manhandling procedures while at the same time approving a number of special permits in heaven's name can they justify that conduct the words of the denial are near application to not contain information to demonstrate that your proposal would be in the interest of the public not be in the interest of the public for the federal aviation administration to conduct compliance review airlines participation in compliance with movement of has this material especially in the aftermath of the value jet crash especially after other incidents that we know about that i know about hazmat movement on board aircraft apparently was stymied by a fence the decision mr chairman likewise i can not explain the decision at the time i will tell you having been made aware of it and looking into it  it does not make sense to me i've recently asked the f a a if they still believe it's worthwhile doing this and they want to do this they've indicated yes and we are going to go ahead and do that if there were concerns to what's going on there are ways to do this and it my observation is i thought it was actually a very valid and useful way of actually testing some of the processes and making sure that  labeling packaging and placement was correct so f a a is interested in doing it we're going to go ahead and do that thank you for that response but i would read from the request the background as inspector general scovel just the f a a says the department of transportation's office of inspector general conducted an audit of f a a is hazardous materials program went on issued a report and  that the f a a plans to quote package mark label and document the shipments as if they were normal shipments of hazardous materials but for safety reasons no actual hazardous materials will be used in conducting the covert tests that's the responsibility agency to test test their own people they do they can do internal reviews audits and and and  evaluations of f a a maintenance inspection personnel procedures activities this is an appropriate way to see whether the agency is doing its work whether the airlines are doing their work and they were denied at the very same time that this agency approves hundreds of special permits for the industry to carry real houses materials i thank you for proceeding with  with that issue and getting f a a back on track to doing their responsibilities now there are this is a good lead in to the weaknesses found in the processing of approvals the inspector general staff has found this department is aware of it our committee staff investigated staff spent a good deal of time reviewing these approvals are different from special permits approval can be issued only if there's a specific provision in the regulation that allows the office of has its materials to provide relief from a particular regulation but there consistently there is no  showing of the need for that some special approval why the relief is requested and it seems that while special permits have a limitation there is no limitation on the or time limit on the approvals muskoka spent a good deal time on that issue what are your recommendations mr chairman we have a number of recommendations pertaining both to special permits and approvals our recommendation if we were to i speak very generally to the approval process is that like special permits there needs to be a clearly defined and uniform approval application process preferably web based we have met my audit team has met twice with representatives of industry and this is one request that they pointed  addressed to us not expecting the course that we are in any position to approve it but certainly hoping that we might incorporate it into our recommendations for the committees and the department's consideration sorry mr chairman that the i agree with the clearly defined and uniform part of it we consistency and predictability and transparency that starts with asking the right questions and making sure that we have a comprehensive application that includes all the details that it that it needs to have we clearly do not have that in all cases now that's one of the things going forward  that i know that we can do very quickly and will do quickly these approvals are not published in the federal register will you direct the agency to do that and they the e required in the federal register i'm sorry if they are but they're not published they have if they are not published we will make sure that they're there and once a year films a publisher has its final action on a special permit application once a year that's not transparency openness that had to be concurrent with their action you know mr chairman we're clearly living in a different era where it's a lot easier to be transparent and when we are reporting basically in real time on contacts that we're having in meetings we can certainly have better than annual reporting on our permanent process again having a web based is one of the ways to do that now an issue consistently over twenty plus years with this agency the pipelines activity that was grossly under funded  pipeline inspection program federal and state and increased funding for them that's deteriorated over time and fallen off overall for the agency first of all how many inspectors does the agency have now for all cari may have more recent information than i do but my audit team in the course of the last fourteen months determined that at the time of of their addressing this question there were thirty five inspectors  a staff as has previously been noted here on the record they're responsible for three hundred thousand or so entities transporting and shipping and packaging has not our staff we've kicked around the question of of films can gain better control of this inspection process certainly the number of inspectors is one key target as you well know sir f a a has wrestled with the same question in connection with their inspection process it's universally acknowledged there can never be enough inspectors however with a proper risk based oversight system and with a proper staffing study both of which we think are now currently missing from films as effort they can better leverage what they have it's also worth noting sort of that the other modes in the department f and c s a f a a f r a as well as various states have inspector resources must better integrate those resources and leverage them together because they'll never have enough inspectors of their own but it's multi phase done a multi pronged effort that forms a need to undertake in order to strengthen its inspections and would be of benefit to the entire inspection process in the surface transportation assistance bill that we've reported from some responsibilities to develop a national strategic safety plan to integrate the competencies all the modes on safety and if we get this bill and and ask them to develop a common safety plan and how to harness the resources it should be it's been said many many one department one t everyone pulling together so intermodal ism will be a way to do that absolutely mr chairman and first just on the numbers there are currently thirty five inspectors and seven field supervisors for a total of forty two the point about leveraging other inspectors in the field is a very important one that is an obvious way one truly intermodal state d o t that was how it was organized and one of the early discussions with secretary la hood when i came on board was safety is an organizing principle at u t i do not want to steal the secretary's thunder and i do i am aware of the provision in the bill that has been marked up but i will tell you that there are some very important steps forward in the department with safety as an inner modal organizing principle that the secretary has directed and perhaps most appropriately he should describe but  we're moving forward on that right now and that's very encouraging and i'm delighted to hear that it's good news structurally but this department ever in a long time you know i had just a little reminiscence i was and ministry of assistant for bill we thought they're all going to work together they haven't been a disappointment and with this legislation the surface transportation bill going to make that legislative change and cause this cause this synergy to happen among all the modal administrations and starting with safety again it's a very important point even in the absence or preceding any legislation there's an awful lot that you can do as secretary organizationally and secretary la hood is actually in the process of doing that right now there is much more intermodal work and cooperation specifically on safety issues than we have had in the past and it's i think if it is low hanging fruit it's something that's relatively quick and easy to do and get some measurable benefits from that that's very important good courage and sector to continue pressing forward with this and also we need revisit the issue of special permits and approvals recommendations for hull this process of permitting can be rationalized i do mr chairman and if you'll permit me to offer recommendations for the committee's consideration as well of the departments based on all of our audit work it goes beyond simply the permitting and approval process i just mentioned the improved application process certainly that's one that may well be low hanging charise terms for the department to implement number two special permits for trade associations the department to its credit has made clear that those will not be issued to associations they'll be  to individual members however there's still the question of five thousand members of associations in the field perhaps believing that they can continue to operate under special permits issued to their associat s that needs to be addressed there hasn't been a level of fitness determination made company by company yet and safety demands a fitness definition a precise definition of what constitute an applica the there are the three fit willing and able fitness is a very clear standard established both in law and in practice in the f a a and it should some lessons learned and applied to you know the regulation permits films to find that an applicant is fit based on prior compliance history information in the in the application itself and other information available to the associated minutes frater very broad too general not helpful to applicants is as well as to those who must administer the process that that gets me really to my next point and that is safety history as a factor in determining fitness fims of fought and won this battle back in one nine hundred ninety six we were determined conducting our own little history study at the time this regulation was written films are received industry comments opposing the use of compliance history to assess an applicant's fitness at the time response since his predecessor disagreed with those comments and stated in the preamble to the final rule and i will quote enforcement actions may be indicative of an applicant ability or willingness to comply with the op with the applicable regulations because the associated ministry there is considering whether to authorize compliance with specific alternatives to the h m r the likelihood of an applicant's compliance with those alternatives is relevant to public safety and the final rule did establish that an applicant's compliance history should be or may be considered and that's the operative language here it's not required but it may be considered by the the administrator in determining fitness mystifying as well to us is why fans in the years since fighting and winning that battle has ceded the ground to industry for what whatever reasons that can't can't be known to us at this at this point but sims a has made clear that they do not consider safety history as a relevant factor in determining fitness they confine their examination to the four corners of the application  process package that's pretty much all that they're looking at that seems to us to fly in the face of common sense and we strongly recommend that the department address that should that be changed in law should law itself administrators the agency should establish a coordination working group one of the points that we highlighted in our testimony today is the lack of coordination between films and the other modes in determining safety history for one  in acting on record on applications next to an enhanced risk based approach to oversight as our testimony today our statement made clear does not cite as a priority factor in its oversight system whether a hazmat carrier maybe a holder of special permits or approvals we think that it's important enough to be included as a priority factor in addition to what sims already recognizes accident investigation third party complaint inquiries and fitness inspections finally longstanding safety concerns mr chairman timeframes for  resolving matters like bulk explosive vehicle questions lithium batteries and as mr chari has mentioned a process at the department level to resolve such intermodal disputes thank you that is a  one of them in particular the relevance of safety history in the fitness definition we should not not may but should certainly take that into account i think that certainly is common sense and directly relevant to the overall fitness of an applicant thank you whatever you can do by regulatory change you should do you are currently on trying toward doing that and  and what whatever else is necessary we will incorporate in legislative language in our crafting of the next transportation bill  in this this plan of action looks looks good on on its surface it seems to me that there's very very specific specific timeframes within ten working days within fifteen days within fifteen days within thirty days actions to be taken looks to me like a good checklist it is sir frankly we were very impressed that the department the department's senior leadership acted as quickly as they have in order to attempt to impose control from the our their level over finances process for special permits and approval and that's that was  really the subject matter of our own inquiry as as i previously noted this morning details remain to be filled in all the action plan addresses special permits very little if any mention made of approvals for instance a point that you made and continuing point for us trade association permits a plan needs to be put in place industry needs to be notified the genie needs to be put back in the bottle regarding all of those five thousand plus permits and as a corollary to that point shouldn't there be some guidance direction understanding the culture of safety within having an arm's length relationship with those whom the agency regulates yes and that's a point that's been made repeatedly in this hearing room mode to mode to mode as we look at it mr chairman partnership is a term that's often used between modal administrators and their staffs and the industries that they regulate in my view partnership can sometimes cross the line into the goal instead of being a means to the end of instituting as safe a program as we possibly can that should be  we think a key part of any safety culture reeducation effort within finn's as well as other modes in the sector apparently agree with that mr chairman you'll find me agreeing that it is important of a correct relationship with industry and with all that implies we certainly solicit input we should never and will not cede the essential safety function and the regulatory role that serves that safety function this is the third in a series of failures within the department the coast guard no longer in the department but in my mind they still are  but there was this indistinguishable link between the coast guard and its contractor lockheed martin who were given authority this self  self approve their work the second was the f a a and the customer service index and the third now is enough drawing the line cleaning house changing the culture putting it on iraq on the right track we appreciate what you're doing and we will continue to oversee their safety is an ever vigilant responsibility and for those who think that we've had the hearing had to look at the agency and we can all take a deep breath and they'll all go away i'm not going away and safety is not going away i grew up in the family underground min where lives depended on each other and on the equipment with which they worked and i will never forget my father's comment when i asked him why he was chairman of the safety committee for twenty six years in the godfrey underground mine i said what sticks in your mind dad he said the most unforgettable sound in the underground is the screams of the men when the cable in the cage broke and there was nothing to stop their witness is mr lee lawn scientists manager of technical services for the institute of makers of explosives pull the microphone closer to you pl i mean members are dependent on special permits or s p s issued by fam said to transport ball blasting agents in oxidizers in multi purpose vault trucks or m b t s that are specially designed for this purpose the s p s apply unique and applicable requirements which provide for the safest and most secure way to deliver blasting materials to the job site to our knowledge there has never been a fate ality injury or explosion attributed to the hazardous materials on board the vehicles in over ten million trips this is only through the continual vigilance that the chairman mentions and a culture of safety that exists within the explosives industry nonetheless i mean has cooperated over the years with them so on enhanced meant to the safety of this type of transportation the most recent effort starting in may of two thousand and eight after considerable study we expect to adopt measures in our standards for this activity s l p twenty three by the end of this year that address the root causes of rollover accidents with these vehicles if s p s authorizing the use of m b t's are revoked or severely restricted the resulting damage to the u much worse than any single terrorist event industry does not have the capacity to deliver the billions of pounds of materials that are currently transported annually in m b t's by other modes or packaging additionally risk to the public would increase because more sensitive products would replace those shipped by s p and more vehicles would be on the highways given the importance of m b t's to the national recovery and infrastructure development we urge th committee to take a reasoned and rational approach this has not been entirely the case with the recent oh i g m management and buys free and fences response we object to the agency's use of sensational descriptors direct comparisons to terrorists intentional acts and unfounded accusations of misbehavior for example statements that m b t's are bombs on wheels catastrophes waiting to happen and prone to rollover are out of proportion to any rational risk based analysis of the operation of these vehicles the public interest is not served by an appeal to emotion when objective analysis rooted in science is required in addition to the absence of any fatalities or injuries the public should know the following the typical m b t has a center of gravity height of seventy five inches which is lower than the center of gravity height of the average loaded semi trailer we believe that the average rollover rate per mile for m b t's is many times better than other vehicles with the same center of gravity height and wheel with these materials will not accidentally explode from the forces encountered in the normal course of transportation if the transportation is compliant with the h m o or in an m b t accident the risk is not increased if the materials mix because sensiti occurs within certain ranges of mixtures and methods of mixing that will not occur in an accident there is very probable very little probability that the bulk materials may explode in a fire and m b t is minimize the overall risk to the public even though several m b ts have burned to the ground without incident it is out of an abundance of caution that we recommend that when explosives are oxidizers are involved in a fire that a stand off perimeter be established these materials must be exposed to a fire for a long period of time before reaction can take place in which time emergency responders can evacuate people to safety to help ensure proper response is taken with explosives incidents i m e in films updated and distributed a training programme to every fire department and united states american two thousand and three on how to respond to these incidents several recommendations have been made that would impose unreasonable and onerous requirements on m b t's and increased risk perhaps the most serious of these suggestion to prohibit the transportation of class eight materials on m b t's this prohibition would jeopardize the latest advancement in m b t safety which involves sensitizing non explosive materials after they have been loaded into b t the result would be more vehicles on the high way and more sensitive explosive products being transported and used i mean as shared recommendations with both the oh i g and samsung on how the s p program may be improved the agency and congress should focus on these deficiencies not attempting to raise public fears and damage the reputation of the commercial explosives industry m b t's do not present an unreasonable risk to health and safety or property and the alternatives increase risk i would be happy to answer any questions raise concern about about characterization of the conveyance of explosive materials i don't know who to whom you have reference saying that but and you may be very understandably sensitive to comparison to the mcveigh situations you cite your testimony it's not unreasonable for people to who are not  specialists in the field to fear that movement of these individual materials separately could result in an accident that produces this kind of tragedy and that that that is that that is murder a building explosion certainly captured the public attention and fear and concern but that is that is not the purpose of this hearing we're not here to ride herd on any individual company but on the process by which films it conducts its business and its oversight and and sta federal register a notice that an application for a special permit has been filed and give the public an opportunity to inspect the safety analysis and comment on the application that is not consistently done by  overall it's years but there is no recall such requirement for an approval and there are i'm vastly more approvals than there are special permits and in what way would the industry be be disadvantaged if those approvals also were published in the federal register as a means of public notification i'm not sure the industry would be disadvantaged however i'm not sure there would be a lot to gain by that and approval is granted when a product meets certain specified criteria it's a black or white issue and either meets the standard it passes the tests that the united nations has sat or it doesn't therefore it's quite different than a special permit in which the special permit is granted when someone wants to engage in an activity that slightly different than what the regulations require  can be given based on what the regulations require but you have no objection to approvals being published in the federal register so that there m concern would be an added responsibility on an already stretched thin workforce that's their job they can work more efficiently and we'll provide them with additional personnel will make sure that there is funding and staffing to carry this out but the public interest should come first  u also in your testimony they quote the the institute of makers of explosives is taking steps to add measure in its standards to address the major causes of rollovers what are those steps what do you mean by adding measure exclaimed that statement we've had a standard for m b t s s first number of years when it was brought to our attention that simpson had concerns over the numbers of rollover incidents we did not necessarily agree that the trucks are rollover prone and so forth and thus did not believe that there was an imminent an emergency situation but nonetheless this industry is committed to safety and as you have mentioned there is a continuous vigilance on safety so in order to address those rollovers and no one wants to have a single rollover we looked at the causes of those rollovers and the two causes were primarily driver air and tire issues these trucks have to travel off road on very severe conditions in the tires take much more abuse than a normal vehicle so it stands to reason that the tires would be a little bit more of an issue so what we did was we pulled together not just the i mean members and this is one of the first times we've done this we've reached out to the entire regulated community and invited them to the table to talk about how we could improve the or lower the probability that a rollover may occur and we worked through that process and had many meetings developed a number of recommendations relative the driver training relative to the quality of tires that is currently going through our subcommittee will most likely be reviewed by the committee that's responsible for this document in october at that point it will go to our legal affairs committee and then on to our board of governors for final approval i'm very and then on location they have to go on very rugged terrain and they have to have very careful training of the drivers and the structural integrity of vehicle so they don't roll over on the mine site and there has to be very careful separation so that should there be an accident should these separate materials that that have very powerful explosive capabilities don't mix and accidentally explode in the case of mining explosives for both coal mining iron ore mining in other hard rock mineral the agency itself needs to be doing a better job of the question i have is whether your what is your view on conduct of safety fitness review by films of agencies that apply for special permits and approvals should should they review the incident history should they review as the specter general said the safety history of the agency it compliance history well i would say that it would it would stand to reason that simpson would examine data generated by the federal motor carrier years safety administration my understanding is that that agency  primarily responsible for evaluating the fitness of motor carriers they accumulate a lot of data and information and i can't see any reason why that information should not be taken into account very good we will make sure that they do that has femmes told your members separate from the show cause letter specifically i think i think everyone realizes that a special permit is a privilege and that the specter of revoke a sion always exists and that they must maintain the the requirements review by the inspector general is going to result in permits do you have any comments or where there are proposals and you have comments on them yes you're referring to the show cause letters yes i believe yes there are well essentially most of these recommendations i think are based on the recommendations that the institute brought to fans in march of this year so the things that we recommended and are going going to go into s l p twenty three that are in the show cause letter we certainly support however we do believe there are  couple of things in here that are not justified on a cost benefit basis we believe that some technology that that is discussed in here doesn't exist we're not aware for example of a fuel cutoff device for these types of vehicles that will function at forty five degrees angle just not aware of it so those there are some some concerns and i think  they've been expressed to the agency and and hopefully this process will continue on and will come up with the meaningful and important additions one of their proposals firms as is a driver qualification and training quote yes stopped for dui yes yes we support that we support the examining a drivers off duty record in consideration of their fitness to drive an m b t certainly that's that's a standard that's used in aviation and that's important i'm glad you're here and conformity vehicle inspections and tire standards you have any objections to those items you're familiar with them only only some minor concerns about the tires i know we have we believe that a tire should not be in service for more than six years however the show cause letter goes a little bit further and says that a tire over six years old should not be on the vehicle part of the concern there is that people sometimes buy tires in large quantities and may not put the tire on an until several years and it's stored in a in a climate controlled conditions so that it doesn't deteriorate comments that you'd like to make about questions i raise with mr scoble or deputy secretary only that we think that him some must have the information that they need to do their job and in my experience i mean has always provided the information and them so has made the decision providing that information gives films a power especially gives films a power at the united nations and as you may be aware we participate in the committee of experts on the transport of dangerous goods at the united nations i mean as an ngo status d o t is the united states representative at those meetings in geneva the i am me and films that come together to represent the united states we're on the same team at the united nations and that requires a good deal of close interaction simply because films that does not have the personnel and the information on explosives that the industry has because it's our life's work and they must regulate an entire qadri of hazardous materials and be a you know a little bit about a lot of things whereas we have people that know pretty much everything about one thing that's interesting observation and the u s does this in many other national maritime organization has both u s government and industry representatives and the same with i k o the international  civil aviation organization their industry and government personnel represent it so that that's and it's thought as we conclude i have to be at another  committee activity shortly i want to this to highlight your comment which is in your written testimony which you delivered in your oral presentation there's not been sufficient attention paid to the any fatalities or injuries from these accidents the absence of failure is not the presence is not necessarily the presence of safety and that comment would be similar to saying that too much attention was paid in one thousand nine hundred eighty four and eighty five to the reports of near midair after we had repeatedly said we need something like a traffic collision avoidance systems and mode c transponder transponders on board aircraft and then when fatality occurred the agency responded that's the graveyard tombstone mentality that must be banished from the safety arena and it doesn't help to say these are incidents as are accidents these are situations that can and do result in fatalities so these sorts of conditions are a precursor to impending failure that's right we have a word for that in our industry we call them near misses or lessons learned and we pay an enormous amount of attention any time something happens that could lead to a more serious event and i believe that's how this industry hasn't been able to improve itself to the point where well let me go back a hundred years when like  black powder dynamite hundreds of people being killed annually in events today we can count annual fee tallies on one hand and sometimes don't even need any fingers in a year and that is through the continual vigilance that you talk about it's through looking at lessons learned for example the rollovers there were no explosions fires from the rollovers but that's that's not acceptable to us the rollover indicates that there could be something happened therefore we need to address the rollover any time there is and something that happens in our workplace that is a near miss you know the close call whatever you whatever you you know word used we pay enormous amount of attention to it and treated almost as if it was the catastrophe because we know it could have been and then we look at and say what could we do to prevent that near miss from happening we're ahead of the disaster that way thank you for those comments and and hope that you take this hearing as a call to continued vigilance and that the agency straightens out th