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52–158 PDF 2009

CONCERNS WITH HAZARDOUS 

MATERIALS SAFETY IN THE U.S.: 

IS PHMSA PERFORMING ITS MISSION? 

(111–57) 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

TRANSPORTATION AND 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

September 10, 2009 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

( 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE 

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota, Chairman 

NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia, Vice 

Chair 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida 

BOB FILNER, California 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa 

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania 

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

HEATH SHULER, North Carolina 

MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York 

HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona 

CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania 

JOHN J. HALL, New York 

STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas 

PHIL HARE, Illinois 

JOHN A. BOCCIERI, Ohio 

MARK H. SCHAUER, Michigan 

BETSY MARKEY, Colorado 

PARKER GRIFFITH, Alabama 

MICHAEL E. MCMAHON, New York 

THOMAS S. P. PERRIELLO, Virginia 

DINA TITUS, Nevada 

HARRY TEAGUE, New Mexico 

VACANCY 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

JERRY MORAN, Kansas 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina 

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania 

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida 

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma 

VERN BUCHANAN, Florida 

ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio 

BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky 

ANH ‘‘JOSEPH’’ CAO, Louisiana 

AARON SCHOCK, Illinois 

PETE OLSON, Texas 

(II) 

(III) 

CONTENTS Page 

Summary of Subject Matter .................................................................................... iv 

TESTIMONY 

Porcari, Hon. John D., Deputy Secretary of Transportation, U.S. Department 

of Transportation, Washington, DC .................................................................... 9 

Santis, Lon D., Manager, Technical Services, Institute of Makers of Explosives, Washington, DC ......................................................................................... 39 

Scovel, Hon. Calvin L. III, Inspector General, U.S. Department of Transportation, Washington, DC ....................................................................................... 9 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Brown, Hon. Corrine, of Florida ............................................................................. 46 

Oberstar, Hon. James L., of Minnesota ................................................................. 51 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES 

Porcari, Hon. John D. .............................................................................................. 56 

Santis, Lon D. .......................................................................................................... 70 

Scovel, Hon. Calvin L. III ....................................................................................... 79 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

Porcari, Hon. John D., Deputy Secretary of Transportation, U.S. Department 

of Transportation, Washington, DC: 

Response to request for information from Hon. Napolitano, a Representative 

in Congress from the State of California: 

Safety and security of chlorine shipments ..................................................... 24 

Rail car placarding ........................................................................................... 29 

Response to request for information from Hon. Oberstar, a Representative 

in Congress from the State of Minnesota: 

Special permits issued to associations ............................................................ 15 

Publication of approvals ................................................................................... 35 

ADDITIONS TO THE RECORD 

American Pyrotechnics Association, Julie L. Heckman, Executive Director, 

letter to the Committee ....................................................................................... 93 

Council on Safe Transportation of Hazardous Articles, Inc., Lara Mehr Currie, 

Administrator, letter to the Committee ............................................................. 97 

Dangerous Goods Advisory Council, Mike Morrissette, President, letter to 

the Committee ...................................................................................................... 99 

International Society of Explosives Engineers, Jeffery L. Dean, Executive 

Director and General Counsel, letter to the Committee ................................... 106 

International Vessel Operators Hazardous Materials Association, Inc., John 

V. Currie, Administrator and Senior Technical Consultant, letter to the 

Committee ............................................................................................................. 107 

National Tank Truck Carriers, Inc., John L. Conley, President: 

Statement for the record .............................................................................. 110 

Revised statement for the record ................................................................. 115 

The Fertilizer Institute, Ford B. West, letter to the Committee ......................... 116 

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(1) 

HEARING ON CONCERNS WITH HAZARDOUS 

MATERIALS SAFETY IN THE U.S.: IS PHMSA 

PERFORMING ITS MISSION? 

Thursday, September 10, 2009 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, 

WASHINGTON, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in room 

2167, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable James Oberstar [Chairman of the Full Committee] presiding. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. The Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure will come to order. 

Today we have a hearing in the nature of a continuation of inquiry into the conduct of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials 

Safety Agency. 

In a way, you could say that this hearing began 22 years ago 

with the explosion of the gasoline pipeline in Mounds View, Minnesota, just outside my district, when a gasoline pipeline had lost 

its cathodic protection. There was a dent in the line that had been 

there for years unnoticed, and at that point there was a failure. 

Gasoline leaked from the pipeline into the ground. There was no 

shutoff valve, there was no sensor to detect the drop in pipeline 

pressure, and the gasoline leaked, apparently for days. 

And the fumes worked their way up through the soil to the street 

level, and at 2:00 a.m. a car driving appropriately through the 

neighborhood, but with a loose tailpipe that dragged on the ground, 

sparked, ignited the fumes that exploded the street into a ball of 

fire, buckled and melted the pavement, and a homeowner, a 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. 

The National Transportation Safety Board did an extensive inquiry, found the failures: the rupture in the pipeline; the loss of cathodic protection, corrosion that resulted; the failure to have frequent, automatic sensors for pipeline pressure loss and for leakage; 

and that the agency had no measures in place, no procedures in 

place, and an 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 of the Investigations Oversight Subcommittee at the 

time. We held a very extensive hearing into the causes and preventive measures that should be taken and 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; that the very top 

2 

person, the administrator of the agency, had no clear idea of what 

safety means. 

And even though we provided—I moved legislation or amendment in our surface transportation in the authorizing Subcommittee to create additional positions for inspection, for inspectors at the Federal and State level and they were funded, but over 

time the attention was lost and the agency continued to operate in 

what I can only describe today as a deteriorated condition of public 

vigilance. 

Safety is not a one-time snapshot. Safety is continuing vigilance. 

I lived it personally when I worked in the mines, when I was going 

through college, and I worked in a concrete Ready Mix concrete 

block factory, I worked on construction zones, street and highway 

construction. It is a matter of mind-set 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. 

The oversight and investigations role and heritage of this Committee goes back to 1959, when then Speaker Sam Rayburn asked 

my predecessor over there, portrait in the corner, John Blatnik, to 

chair the special investigating committee on the Federal Aid 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 36 Federal and State and private contractor 

personnel being sent to State and Federal prison. Some of them are 

still there. 

At the beginning of those investigations, no State had internal 

audit and review procedures in it highway program. As a result of 

those investigations, every State adopted such procedures and has 

continued to refine them. 

The work of that committee was expanded into other areas of the 

Full Committee’s jurisdiction, because we know that maintaining 

oversight of the Executive Branch agencies is the responsibility of 

the Congress. We pass the laws; they enforce them. It is our job 

to make sure they are doing the public’s business, and we will continue to pursue that responsibility in this Committee. 

PHMSA’s culture appears plagued by a belief the agency should 

make things as easy as possible for the industry that it should be 

regulating. I have asked the staff, since the time we regained the 

majority, to take a special, careful, thorough review of this agency, 

based on my previous experience that I have already described. 

The investigation undertaken by our Committee staff, and also by 

the Inspector General of DOT, uncovered a shocking number of 

failures by the agency to follow Federal law in hazmat regulation, 

outright neglect in regulating the transportation of hazardous materials. We also heard from numerous employees, those with a real 

conscience and with a concern for the public interest, that their 

agency was entirely, as I suspected and have experienced over the 

years, too cozy with the industry. 

This is a theme we have 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 saw it last year in the inquiry into failure of FAA 

to oversee safety at major airlines, including Southwest, which was 

3 

the subject of a very significant hearing. Again, the FAA inspector 

staff was told that the industry is our customer. 

Safety is not a customer relationship, it is an arm’s length relationship. And if the FAA treats an airline as the customer and the 

customer isn’t satisfied with the oversight service they are getting, 

then they can ask for changes, and they did, and the principal 

maintenance inspector was pulled from the Southwest ticket, just 

as similar actions occurred at the Coast Guard. 

In the result of our Coast Guard hearings and inquiry, and of the 

Inspector General’s very thorough work, we have passed legislation 

that will change those practices at Coast Guard, and the Coast 

Guard itself has instituted changes. Similarly at FAA, we have 

moved legislation to change the way safety is conducted and taken 

out the customer service initiative. It has no place in safety. It 

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 PHMSA almost never turns down a request from industry for 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 will ask the Inspector General and the under secretary to address the question of why there should continue to be 

rule by exception, why there should be special permit, and why 

shouldn’t there be a permitting structure to govern this matter, 

rather than each case be considered; 5,000 such applications in a 

two-year period, and less than two percent were denied. Saying 

there is a cozy relationship with industry is an understatement. 

PHMSA never performs fitness reviews, although required to do 

so, and it does not review the safety record or the enforcement 

record of applicants for special permits, and that is required by 

Federal regulations, they are defined in their own regulations. 

They have no idea, in this agency, where the special permits are 

being used. If you issue a special permit and you don’t know where 

they are being used, then it is virtually impossible to monitor and 

enforce those permits. 

Furthermore, the records are in appalling conditions. The vast 

majority of special permit applications our Committee staff and I 

reviewed, there was no safety analysis, there was no justification 

in the approval records. The agency relies almost entirely on selfcertification by the applicant. That is a formula for failure, as we 

saw in the Coast Guard and the FAA inquiries. 

Further, the agency grants special permits to industry trade associations, which then can distribute those permits to any of its 

members. Those trade associations are not safety agencies, they are 

advocacy groups. They are perfectly legal, but they are not safety 

responsibility agencies. This practice defies common sense. There is 

no way to hold a trade association accountable under the law, and 

often PHMSA, in response to our questions, has no idea who is 

using a particular special permit. 

Furthermore, they operate all by themselves, PHMSA. They do 

not coordinate with FAA, with the Federal Railroad Administration, with Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, all of 

whom have safety responsibilities. There are cases where those regVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:44 Mar 23, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\52158.TXT JEAN
4 

ulatory agencies were opposed to granting of exceptions, and yet 

they were ignored. 

PHMSA also issues approvals and permits to agents of foreign 

governments without any evaluation of the fitness of the foreign 

company. On July 4, 2009, this year, four people were killed in 

North Carolina when a truck loaded with Chinese fireworks exploded. PHMSA was unable to provide critical documentation on 

this permit. 

They often ignore the concerns of their own enforcement personnel. Numerous of the staff told our Committee investigators 

that their warning and advisories have repeatedly been ignored by 

senior management. A senior manager told our Committee investigators I take enforcement personnel views with a grain of salt. 

That is reprehensible. This agency needs a house cleaning. 

PHMSA itself needs that 60 to 90 percent of hazmat accidents 

go unreported and the agency has no data driven base. There was 

a universal view expressed within the agency that their data is inaccurate, incomplete, and virtually useless. That is unacceptable. 

There are volumes more information, but it is clear this agency’s 

relationship with the industry it regulates needs to be completely 

overhauled. Its current state is unacceptable, to say the least. 

The industry will say, oh, we haven’t had any fatalities—of 

course, there were those three or four people—but that is not a 

safety mind-set; that is what I called of the FAA a tombstone mentality. You wait until people are dead and then you start acting? 

That is not right. Twenty years ago I recommended more inspection, safety mind-set, higher standards within this agency. It has 

deteriorated from there. 

Today’s hearing marks a turning point in the history of that 

agency. The Deputy Secretary, Mr. Porcari, has taken action as 

soon as he became aware of these findings and those of the Inspector General. I am happy he is here. I am grateful to the Inspector 

General, Mr. Scovel, for his persistent work and detailed thorough 

and dispassionate detailed work on this issue. 

Now the Chair is happy to recognize the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Shuster. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me start off first 

by saying happy birthday to you. I have exposed you. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Yes. Thank you. No songs. 

Mr. SHUSTER. I am fortunate that you say no songs, because my 

voice isn’t that pleasant to listen to. But, anyway, happy birthday 

to you. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you very much. 

Mr. SHUSTER. And many, many more. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. At a certain point, birthdays are overrated. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Well, good morning to everybody. Welcome to this 

hearing today on hazardous materials. Welcome to the Inspector 

General and to the Deputy Secretary. Thank you for being with us 

today. 

The Department Inspector General has raised legitimate concerns about PHMSA’s handling of special permits, approvals for 

hazardous materials, transportation practices that fall outside of 

the normal regulations, and, as the Chairman has documented, 

there are certainly a lot of improvements needed to be made at 

5 

PHMSA, especially in the record keeping and those areas; and that 

is what this hearing is all about today, to talk about those issues. 

So I look forward to hearing from PHMSA and the Deputy Secretary on how they play to improve the process, including an explanation of the action plan that you have developed to take care of 

some of these problems. 

I also look forward to hearing from the institute of the makers 

of explosives about advances in the safety of transporting blasting 

materials essential to mining and construction industries. Given 

the inherent risk associated with transporting materials designed 

to explode, the industry does have an outstanding safety record. 

The use of multi-purpose bulk trucks, or MBTs, 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 MBTs 

have never caused a single injury or fatality in transportation. 

I think we need to strike a balance in hazmat transportation policy between making sure that appropriate safeguards are in place, 

while at the same time being careful that we do not unnecessarily 

burden the workhorse industries of our economy. 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 ton miles of annual 

freight on our roads, rails, waterways, and air cargo is considered 

a hazardous material. These shipments include everything from 

heating oil, gasoline, fertilizer, drinking water, chemicals, and medical materials use to treat sick folks. It is absolutely necessary that 

we are able to safely and quickly deliver a wide range of potentially 

dangerous materials without unnecessary bureaucratic interference. 

Hazmat carriers have a remarkable safety record. The percentage of movement of hazardous goods resulting in an injury or fatality is an astonishing statistic. I have said it before, but .00002 percent result in injury and about .000014 percent of movements result in a fatality. There are about four times as many deaths 

caused by lightening strikes annually than by hazardous material 

transportation accidents. 

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 are 

doing, if it is right or if it is wrong, not how many permits are rejected. I think using that as a measurement is a false sense of 

what an agency is doing and an industry is doing and how it is performing. 

Of course, when you are talking about moving dangerous goods, 

there is going to be risk and there are going to be accidents. There 

is 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. I know that PHMSA is very short-handed and it is 

very difficult for the number of people they have to move forward 

on some of these things. 

But we have to make the effort and we have to do what is necessary to make sure that they do keep the records, that they do 

have a process in place for these special permits, as much for safety as for industry, so that they know, when they are going to apply 

6 

for a permit, they know what the process is and they can count on 

some consistency when they are doing that. We don’t want to knot 

the system up and create red tape that will cease to be effective 

for the user and that could damage our economy and our society. 

So I look forward to hearing from our panelists and, with that, 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. I thank the gentleman for his comments. 

Do other Members wish to be heard? 

Ms. BROWN. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Ms. Brown. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I too want 

to say happy birthday and thank you for your service on this Committee. As I say, you are the guru of transportation. 

Also, I want to thank Ranking Member Mica for holding this 

hearing today on the Hazardous Material Safety Program. I also 

want thank the staff for their hard work in investigating this serious issue. 

Each day, nearly 1.2 million shipments of hazardous materials 

are moved by all modes of transportation. Over the last decade, 

there have been over 170,000 incidents involving the transportation 

of hazardous materials, resulting in 134 fatalities, 2,783 injuries, 

and more than $631 million in property damage. More disturbing, 

the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration has 

only 35 inspectors to cover over 300,000 hazmat-related entities. 

This issue is so important to the communities that see hazardous 

material travel on their roads and railroads. At many of the hearings we have held dealing with rail safety, residents and local officials and firefighters and others have expressed their concern with 

the transport of these dangerous materials, and it is my guess that 

once they hear about what the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials 

Safety Administration has done or, more importantly, has not done, 

I am sure they will be even more concerned. 

There was such a lack of oversight and inappropriate 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 is making 

the effort to provide proper oversight to the agencies within its jurisdiction. 

In May of this year, I held a Subcommittee hearing on the Department of Transportation’s Hazardous Materials Safety Program 

with all of the stakeholders to learn what improvements needed to 

be made for the new hazmat reauthorization bill. 

During the hearing it became clear that there were significant 

problems in the program. The agency does not look at its own data 

on accidents and incidents; it does not follow up on unreported incidents; and it does not even review whether a carrier should be registered to transport hazmat materials. Let me say that again. The 

agency does not look at its own data on accidents and incidents; it 

does not follow up on unreported incidents; and it does not even review whether a carrier should be registered to transport hazmat 

materials. 

It grants an alarming number of waivers from important safety 

regulations and provides with little or no oversight on permit holders. And it has so few inspectors that I cannot understand how 

7 

they can begin to inspect 300,000 hazmat entities to make sure 

that they are complying with the regulations and the terms of the 

waiver. 

The subsequent investigations by Committee staff and the DOT 

Inspector General confirmed what the Subcommittee heard from 

witnesses at our hearing and even uncovered additional problems 

with current Hazmat Safety Programs. 

I am hopeful that the new Administration is willing to work 

harder at administering these important Hazardous Materials 

Safety Programs and look forward to hearing how they plan to fix 

the serious problems. 

With that, I want to welcome today’s panelists and thank you for 

joining us. I am looking forward to hearing their testimony. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. And thank you for your previous work on the 

hearing that you conducted as Chair of the rail Subcommittee. It 

laid the groundwork for today’s hearing. 

Mrs. Capito. 

Mrs. CAPITO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Briefly, I would like to 

make a brief opening statement. I would like to thank the witnesses for being here. 

Representing the State of West Virginia, in looking at the States 

that are listed by consumption of explosive materials, our State is 

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 built a road, you need explosive materials. If you 

want to create a mine, you need explosive materials. 

So it is extremely important that these materials are safely 

transported to the mine site or the construction site. And it is done 

on a very frequent basis, obviously, in our State, traveling all of the 

roads, not just the major highways, but some of those little ones 

going up to where a lot of folks live in the hollows and more rural 

parts of our State. 

So I am very interested in this report. I am interested to see 

what your plans are going to be going forward to address some of 

the issues. So I appreciate the Chairman bringing this to light and 

bringing it before the full Committee, and I look forward to the testimony of the witnesses. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. I thank the gentlewoman for her statement. 

Yes, Wyoming, with the Powder River Basin coal mining operations and West Virginia with highway and coal operations. We in 

Minnesota, in my district, the iron ore mining industry uses 

300,000 pounds a day of explosives to extract the iron ore from the 

rock harder than granite that fuels our steel industry. We are very 

familiar with explosive materials. I have been on mine sites, I have 

worked in the iron ore mines myself, and I know what that is and 

what it means to have 55 to 60 million pounds a year of explosives 

on the roadways. 

Other Members wish to be heard? Mrs. Napolitano? 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was going to 

wait, but you hit on some very key points, because, as I have stated 

before, the products coming in from abroad travel through my disVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:44 Mar 23, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\52158.TXT JEAN
8 

trict; mini trains, a mile and a half long carrying explosives or carrying all kinds of hazardous material. 

I have been involved in the issue of chlorine because we have 

had spills in our Los Angeles area. You are talking about 12 million people and that is very, very important for us to understand 

whether the fire department’s placarding is consistent, that they 

can read it as they are responding to an incident, or whether or 

not the railroad is maintaining the lines so there are no accidents 

because of hairline cracks in the rails. I mean, all those come to 

play. 

So what I am very concerned is whether or not the agencies have 

enough budget, have enough personnel to be able to do all the follow-up that is going to be required to consistently apply to all the 

hazardous materials being carted so that there is 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. Chairman, and 

would be able to have a lot more of, how should I say, interest in. 

Thank you, sir. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Ms. Markey. 

Ms. MARKEY. 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 Poudre River in recent weeks. The Poudre 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 

5,000 gallons of tar into the river and EPA 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 7,000 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 and the main contractor is no 

longer allowed to have asphalt trucks on the highway until it can 

prove to the Colorado DOT 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 these spills into the 

Poudre River and I look forward to discussing and establishing increased oversight of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety 

Administration. 

Thank you. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you for that very personal touch to this 

hearing; it brings it much closer to home when you have those experiences. 

Mr. Hare. 

Mr. HARE. I will just adapt, if that is OK with you, Mr. Chairman. Let me just thank everybody for being here today. I want to 

join my colleagues in wishing you a very happy birthday and I 

want to thank you and the Ranking Member for holding this important hearing today. I commend you for the sense of duty that 

you have in leading this Committee in effective oversight of the 

9 

United States Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. 

As we know, PHMSA is the leading agency responsible for regulating and monitoring the movement of hazardous materials. It was 

created in 2004 under the Norman Y. Mineta Research and Special 

Programs Improvement Act and was proceeded by the Research 

and Special Programs Administration. The role of PHMSA is clear: 

to protect the American people by ensuring the safe transportation 

of hazardous material. 

Mr. Chairman, after learning of the finding of both the DOT Office of Inspector General’s audit of PHMSA’s Hazardous Material 

Safety Program, in particular the Special Permits and Approval 

Program, as well as findings from the Committee staff’s recent investigation, I am very concerned that PHMSA is not fulfilling its 

role. I am most concerned with the revelation that PHMSA has 

failed to maintain an arm’s length relationship with industry and, 

in doing so, has lost sight of its main focus, which is public safety. 

Now it is our responsibility, as the Committee of jurisdiction, to 

examine these issues and ensure that PHMSA has what it needs 

to do the job that it was created to do, ensure safety of our hazmat 

workers and non-profits. 

I look forward to hearing from the witnesses today. 

Let me again thank you, Mr. Chairman and the Ranking Member, for holding this important meeting, and I would yield back. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. I thank the gentleman. 

Mr. Ortiz? 

Mr. ORTIZ. I really don’t have any statement, but this is a very, 

very important and serious hearing. With all the kind of material 

that is being moved, I would just hope that we could—and I am 

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, as you well know, and we move tons and tons of stuff all 

over the highways, and just because we haven’t had an accident 

doesn’t mean that there isn’t one that could happen that could destroy a lot of lives. 

So, Mr. Chairman, again, to you, happy birthday, 25th birthday. 

Congratulations. I wish you many more and thank you so much for 

having this hearing today, because it is a very, very important 

hearing. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you. I thank all of you. In preparation for 

this landmark occasion, I went out and rode 75 miles over the 

weekend on my bike, not on my car. 

If there are no other requests, we will begin with Inspector General Scovel. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE CALVIN L. SCOVEL, III, INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, WASHINGTON, D.C.; AND THE HONORABLE JOHN D. 

PORCARI, DEPUTY SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION, U.S. 

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, WASHINGTON, DC. 

Mr. SCOVEL. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Shuster, Members 

of the Committee, thank you for inviting me here today to discuss 

PHMSA’s Special Permits and Approvals Program. My testimony 

focuses on weaknesses we have identified and how PHMSA authorVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:44 Mar 23, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00033 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\52158.TXT JEAN
10 

izes and oversees these exemptions to hazmat regulations, weaknesses that call for a fundamental rethinking of PHMSA’s approach. 

As currently structured, PHMSA’s Special Permits and Approvals Program carries little assurance that hazmat will be safely 

transported. This is evidenced by PHMSA’s practice of granting 

permits without full knowledge of applicants’ safety histories and 

the agency’s record of inattention to longstanding safety issues. 

First, PHMSA does not look at applicants’ incident and compliant 

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 for years prior to receiving their 

permit. For example, PHMSA granted a special permit to a company to operate bulk explosive vehicles, even though that company 

had 53 prior incidents, 9 of which were serious vehicle rollovers. Of 

particular concern is PHMSA’s practice of granting special permits 

to trade associations, effectively giving a blanket authorization to 

thousands of member companies without any assessment of their 

safety histories or need for the permit. 

PHMSA also grants special permits and approvals without thoroughly evaluating applications. PHMSA’s reviews of 65 percent of 

the 99 permits and all 56 approvals we looked at were either incomplete, lacked evidence of an equal level of safety finding, or 

simply non-existent. 

Further, PHMSA’s 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 

27 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. 

PHMSA’s lack of coordination with FAA, FRA, and FMCSA exacerbates these weaknesses. These agencies may have critical safety 

data on applicants seeking a permit. Yet, we found PHMSA did not 

coordinate 90 percent of the new and party-to permits, or any of 

the renewals we reviewed. PHMSA also did not coordinate most of 

the emergency permits we reviewed, even though the law specifically requires that coordination. 

The second vulnerability we identified is PHMSA’s inattention to 

longstanding safety issues. Most notably, PHMSA ignored safety 

concerns regarding transportable explosives, concerns first raised 

by its own Office of Hazardous Materials and Enforcement over 

two years ago. We called for PHMSA to take action on this in our 

July 2009 management advisory. 

This is not the first time longstanding safety concerns have gone 

unaddressed. There has been intense debate among PHMSA, FAA, 

NTSB, and other aviation stakeholders on the safe transport of 

lithium batteries by air. Last year, eight lithium battery incidents 

involving air carriers occurred, two of which were life-threatening, 

and we have seen six so far this year. Yet, PHMSA has not stepped 

up its coordination efforts or addressed all of FAA’s and NTSB’s 

concerns. 

For example, we found PHMSA granted an emergency special 

permit in 2008 to ship lithium batteries by air with a poisonous gas 

11 

normally not allowed on aircraft. According to FAA, PHMSA did 

not explain how an equal level of safety would be met or provide 

safety measures for the pilots. PHMSA is working with FAA 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 LaHood and Deputy 

Secretary Porcari for their leadership in directing PHMSA to develop an action plan in response to our recent advisory on 

PHMSA’s special permit process. PHMSA’s plan shows promise and 

we will continue to monitor its progress. In addition, we believe the 

actions described in Deputy Secretary Porcari’s statement could address many other fundamental weaknesses we have identified. The 

Secretary and Deputy Secretary’s continued support will be critical 

to successfully implement these planned 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 would be happy 

to answer any questions you or Members of the Committee may 

have. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you very much, Inspector General Scovel. 

Your entire document will be included in the Committee hearing 

record at this point. It is a comprehensive detailed analysis of this 

agency and its shortcomings, and your recommendations for improvements. We will get to those in a bit. 

Deputy Secretary Porcari, congratulations, first of all, on your 

appointment to the position. I have known you from the time you 

served in Maryland as secretary and you have already made a good 

start within the Department. 

Mr. PORCARI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, Ranking 

Member Shuster, and distinguished Members of the Committee, on 

behalf of Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, I appreciate the 

opportunity to discuss the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials 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 Materials Program, 

including its Special Permits Program. I have also been briefed by 

the Department’s Office of Inspector General regarding the Hazmat 

Special Permits Program and the advisory that the Office of the Inspector General issued on special permits for explosive mixing 

trucks. I have also been briefed on a 2008 internal review of 

PHMSA’s safety culture regarding 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 is off track on its primary mission, safety. Let me 

be clear. Secretary LaHood and I regard transportation safety as 

the Department’s primary mission and we are taking action to get 

PHMSA back on that mission. I would like to report briefly on the 

actions we have taken to begin this process and to address some 

of the immediate concerns. 

First, the Department has a detailed action plan, which you have 

been provided copies of, to address the safety concerns raised by 

the Inspector General about the Special Permits and Approval ProVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:44 Mar 23, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00035 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\52158.TXT JEAN
12 

gram. Before I discuss the specifics of that, I would like to also 

briefly describe the importance of the Special Permits Program to 

our overall regulatory program. 

DOT 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. DOT 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 a required level of safety does not exist. 

Every year, DOT issues approximately 120 new special permits, 

authorizes approximately 100 modifications to existing special permits, and issues approximately 1100 renewals. New special permits 

may be authorized for up to two years, at which time they 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 are working hard to address 

these deficiencies with the detailed action plan that is submitted. 

Briefly, we have taken the following actions: one, conducted a comprehensive top-to-bottom review of current written special permit 

policies, procedures, and practices to ensure that the safety goals 

are met; two, review the criteria, policy, and procedures used to 

make the legally required equivalent level of safety determinations 

and revise those procedures where necessary; three, develop enhanced written procedures to provide for better coordination for the 

issuance of permits with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the FAA, the Federal Railroad Administration, and the 

Coast Guard; four, to clarify PHMSA policy to assure the trade associations are not holders of 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 and 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 until 

completed, a mechanism for alerting holders of special permits 90 

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 OIG 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. It includes conducting fitness reVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:44 Mar 23, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\52158.TXT JEAN
13 

views 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 in 

transportation; reviewing documentation, including safety assessments and analysis, to ensure that 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 evolve and update as necessary. 

As I mentioned, I was briefed late last week by your staff on the 

findings of the Committee investigation. You 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 

diligently raised. 

The rest of that is submitted for the record. I would conclude by 

mentioning the lithium battery regulation. The Committee has expressed interest in the notice of proposed rulemaking on lithium 

batteries. It is clearly a very important issue. The Department has 

forwarded to OMB a notice of proposed rulemaking yesterday for 

review on that, and we will continue moving on that as well. 

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, safety culture, which, 

Mr. Chairman, you clearly listed in your opening remarks. Re-establishing a safety culture is perhaps the top priority. It is an ongoing effort. We expect, within the next 90 days, the employees will 

once again view the organization and its leadership as strongly 

committed to its safety mission. 

The fact that Secretary LaHood 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 rulemakings 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 deny renewal of permits for unsafe actors. 

Thank you. With that, I will be happy to answer any questions. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. 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 to their leadership for 

guidance. That chain has to be broken, and that will take the Secretary’s leadership, which he has already indicated, and yours, as 

you have already undertaken. 

Your DOT action plan I think is excellent. I don’t see anything 

there about association special permits, however. Have you addressed that issue? 

Mr. PORCARI. 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 are not issued to associations. After appropriate review, they are issued to companies. 

14 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Does that mean that the Department will terminate those 12 association authorities? 

Mr. PORCARI. We are in the process of and will 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. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Report back to us when you have completed that. 

Mr. PORCARI. I will be happy to do that. 

[The information follows:] 

15 


Insert offset folio 21 here 52158.021
16 

Mr. OBERSTAR. In the opening chapter of the law governing 

transportation of hazardous material, section 5101 states the purpose of this chapter is to protect against the risks to life, property, 

and the environment that are inherent in the transportation of 

hazardous material in intrastate, interstate, and foreign commerce. 

That is a rather unequivocal statement, yet, the trade industry 

witness says the law says that PHMSA regulates against unreasonable risk. That is a misstatement of the law. In section 5103, general regulatory authority, in the subsection designating material as 

hazardous, Secretary shall designate material—and it lists the various types of materials—as hazardous when the Secretary determines that transporting the material in commerce in a particular 

amount and form may pose an unreasonable risk to health and 

safety or property. 

Do you have some recommendations for amendment of that provision? 

Mr. PORCARI. Mr. Chairman, if there is something that we are 

not doing there consistent with the overall safety mission, we will 

modify it and do whatever we need to. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. That is the current statutory language, form that 

may pose an unreasonable risk to health and safety or property. 

That is not the way safety is conducted or directed in the FAA Act. 

Mr. PORCARI. That is correct, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Safety, in the opening paragraph of the FAA Act 

of 1958, the directive is safety shall be maintained, safety in aviation shall be maintained at the highest possible level. It doesn’t say 

acceptable or unacceptable risk; it sets the bar very high. And I invite your reconsideration of this language to something that is 

measurable. This is a very subjective statement in law, and we 

have the opportunity and the authorization of surface transportation law to make appropriate changes. So I would like your attention to that issue and report back to the Committee. 

Mr. PORCARI. I would be happy to do that, Mr. Chairman. Again, 

safety as a culture is also an ongoing process, there is not an endpoint to it, and, in many ways, the Federal Aviation Administration 

is the leader in the Department in that. I should point out that 

Secretary LaHood 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 

is the case across the board. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. I welcome that initiative. I welcome the Secretary’s firmness; he is a person of purpose and driven, and he will 

achieve results. He is no-nonsense. 

Inspector General Scovel, why special permits? Why the modifications? Why 120 new special permit applications every year? 

Why some 100 modifications, from your testimony, to existing—I 

think maybe that is the Department’s testimony—to existing special permits? Why 1,100 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. 

Mr. SCOVEL. Mr. Chairman, we have had our audit ongoing for 

the last 14 months into PHMSA’s Special Permits and Approvals 

17 

Program. It quickly became obvious to us, first from the sheer 

number of special permits and approvals—5500-plus permits, 

118,000-plus approvals—that it appeared that the innovations and 

the advancements and the improvements that industry has come 

up with for the transportation of hazardous materials has essentially swallowed the body of law that is 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 a result, exemptions to the procedures and processes specified in the 

regulations have been granted in the form of these special permits 

and approvals. One of our strongest recommendations to the Committee and to the Department is that it establish a strategy for methodically, and in a disciplined way, bringing the current technology, the current practice, industry practice into regulations so 

that the entire practice of special permits and approvals can be 

brought under control. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. That is a very important, very strong suggestion, 

and one that we will follow up on. 

This is a special permit issued by the Pipeline Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. It was granted to a particular company 

plus 84 other cargo carriers. It authorizes transportation in commerce of hazardous 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 ValuJet crash with the oxygen bottles carried loosely onboard, 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 and brought the aircraft down and lost lives. 

Now, the crew was in no way able to access that compartment, 

they were not aware that those oxygen bottles were onboard, they 

were not aware that onboard they were not secured or isolated one 

from the other; and that was 15-plus years ago. You would think 

that somebody had learned a lesson in the meantime. Apparently 

not. Explosives, flammables, poison, corrosives covered by this special permit. And it specifically says in any inaccessible compartment. How can they justify that? Did you talk to them about that, 

Mr. Scovel? 

Mr. SCOVEL. We did not. We know that that is a particular concern of NTSB’s 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 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 is a particular 

concern. 

One of NTSB’s key recommendations, in our view, is that when 

lithium batteries are to be carried in inaccessible locations, that 

they be carried in fire-resistant containers. NTSB has been fighting 

this battle for 10 years; it is still not satisfactorily resolved, in our 

view. 

18 

Mr. OBERSTAR. That is just unacceptable. There are many others. 

I will conclude for the moment on this one. Issued November 9, 

2006, this emergency special permit authorizes transportation in 

commerce of nitric acid, etcetera, etcetera. It waives the requirements for marking, for labeling, for shipping papers; waives the requirement for aviation stowage requirement; it waives the requirement for notice to the pilot in command. In November 1973, nitric 

acid carried aboard an aircraft on a PanAm Airline aircraft resulted in emergency landing in Boston and three crew were killed. 

The argument that there are only a few of these, until someone’s 

life is lost. Now, if you are operating in a haphazard structure and 

comforting yourselves saying we haven’t had many fatalities, only 

a few or it is only rare, then try being one of the family members. 

Try putting yourself in the position of those who have lost a loved 

one or being aboard one of those horrible accidents and dying a 

painful death. That is not acceptable. 

Mr. Shuster. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Scovel, I think we all agree, especially on the heels of what 

the Chairman said, that there has been haphazard, the process 

hasn’t been in place that needs to be; we have uncovered a lot of 

shortcomings and failings at PHMSA in its record-keeping and the 

like. I don’t know that I have seen it, but can you assess the overall 

safety record within the hazmat materials movement industry? 

What is the assessment of the IG’s Office on the overall record? 

Mr. SCOVEL. Mr. Shuster, 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 PHMSA 

itself. We have found serious deficiencies in the program design 

and execution of the Special Permits and Approval Program that 

leads us to question, frankly, whether there has been the exercise 

of due diligence in that particular office within PHMSA and the 

safety culture, the understanding of safety culture within that office. My recent work wouldn’t qualify me to speak to industry practice, however. 

Mr. SHUSTER. It would seem to me that would be an important 

part of the IG’s role, to assess the situation and what are the outcomes, good or negative. Again, the records I see are that it is still 

a remarkably safe record, in spite of the fact that the process is 

flawed and failed and needs to be improved. 

You mentioned something about these special permits, that the 

advances in technology and improvements in industry have swallowed up the law. Can you be more specific? That sounds like a 

positive—well, it sounds like the law is lagging way behind and 

needs to be changed because there have been advancements in the 

industry. Can you address that more specifically? 

Mr. SCOVEL. Yes, sir. 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 

is specified in the regulation has been overtaken by events within 

the industry; a much safer rail tank car is now standard within the 

industry. By our accounts, it has an excellent safety record. Yet, 

the regulation itself hasn’t been updated to incorporate the new 

19 

technology. Rail companies still need to apply for and renew special 

permits to use the latest technology instead of the older one. 

To return to your earlier question, sir, about practice within the 

industry, I can say, from our experience with trade associations 

and the agency’s 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 

entail, indeed, even whether certain members are the recipients, 

through their trade association, of permits to begin with. 

And we have 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 have been engaged in for 

some time now, carrying hazmat in a particular manner, we forgot 

to tell you have a special permit, so you may be covered; bad news, 

there may be a team of OIG auditors on the way to check and see 

how you are carrying it out. 

So I suppose that is an indicator of some sort on the state of play 

within the industry or at least how certain trade associations view 

their responsibilities. 

Mr. SHUSTER. I would hope these trade associations, one of their 

roles should be informing and help to keep that industry up to 

speed on where safety issues are, and I think the trade industry 

is not doing that, is failing their membership significantly. 

Mr. Scovel, do you believe that PHMSA’s action plan addresses 

most of the concerns that you have raised? 

Mr. SCOVEL. It does address most of the concerns and we are 

very grateful to Deputy Secretary Porcari and Secretary LaHood 

for their leadership at the top levels of the Department in bringing 

home to PHMSA the importance of both our findings and the Committee’s staff’s findings regarding deficiencies, in our case, of special permits and approvals. We do recognize, as we work through 

the action plan, that at this point it is rather high level. It has a 

list of actions, it has a time line for carrying those out. Of course, 

we recognize it is a work in progress; the Department will need to 

add detail to it, they will have to tag resources to actions, they will 

have to recognize limitations and develop strategies to overcome 

those. 

The Chairman questioned the Deputy Secretary on an omission 

from the action plan regarding a plan to address special permits 

issued to trade associations. Frankly, it is not clear in my mind 

that PHMSA or the Department is going to follow up with all 

5,000-plus individual members of trade associations who may have 

derivatively received special permits. 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. 

Mr. SHUSTER. That is going to obviously take resources. If I 

could, just one final question. Are the resources in place? I guess 

that is not a fair question; they are not in place, whether they are 

human resources or technological advances. Have you assessed is 

it going to take a lot more personnel or can you overcome some of 

these shortcomings by technology? 

20 

Mr. SCOVEL. It will take a combination of two, Mr. Shuster, certainly technology, better data systems are required. The Deputy 

Secretary acknowledged that in his statement to the Committee. It 

is going to take time and a strategy. Frankly, some sizeable 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, as we have learned 

in our field visits. Some of those 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. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Backtrack there a little bit. You said there are 

some companies that are doing a good job? Is that what I understood you to say? 

Mr. SCOVEL. Yes. If I can be specific. As part of our examination 

of this practice of granting permits to trade associations, we visited 

18 companies that belong to 7 of the 12 trade associations. We 

found that 10 of those 18 were not performing the activity in the 

special permit. So not applicable, they may be cut off from the permit, no further review needed. 

Four companies were not located at the address provided by their 

association. Association clearly not on the ball. They didn’t know, 

PHMSA doesn’t know. That needs to be updated. Three companies, 

3 of the 18, had compliance issues we found regarding shipping papers, training, security plans; and these are essential plans 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 18 appeared to be in compliance with 

the terms and conditions of the special permit. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you very much. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Those last comments are very powerful, very revealing, and troubling; more than troubling, disturbing. In further 

response to Mr. Shuster’s question about safety, my dictum has 

been that safety begins in the corporate board room; not in the regulatory agencies, not in this Committee, and not in the Congress. 

It begins in the corporate board room. They have the first responsibility. Airline executives have that first responsibility. 

But the role of safety in aviation goes back to 1926 and Herbert 

Hoover, when he was Secretary of Commerce, and more in the interest of developing aviation as a commercial activity than for safety of personnel. There was only the pilot, there was no passenger 

air service in those days. But he initiated the first aviation safety 

rulemaking of the Federal Government in 1926 as Under Secretary 

and 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. That was 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 of board rooms with a culture of safety. I visited one over 

the past weekend in my district, where they typically handle 

300,000 pounds of explosives a day during the mining years. They 

are very meticulous. They supervise their drivers; they put them 

21 

through training and retraining procedures. They have worked to 

perfect the transport vehicles themselves. I talked with every one 

of the drivers individually, apart and away from the company management. They are doing their very best. And they question the 

regulatory structure that is in place. They are doing what they 

think is the best practice. 

And then as to the incidents, here is a report, an internal document in PHMSA, May 11, 2007, estimating the extent of under-reporting of hazmat incidents. There are many reasons to suspect 

that carriers are under-reporting hazmat incidents. It goes on in 

the opening paragraph, preliminary conclusion, the incidents that 

are reported to us might represent only 10 to 40 percent of all incidents that are actually occurring. That would mean that we are 

missing from 60 percent, that is, 26,000 incidents a year, to 90 percent, that is, 151,000 incidents a year. Our database reflects only 

17,000 incidents a year. 

From 2006 to June 2009, there were 1,450 unreported and only 

7 enforcement actions. That is not a culture of safety. That is not 

carrying out your responsibility. This was an internal report and 

wasn’t acted on by senior management; they just dismissed it. 

Next, Ms. Brown. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you. 

First of all, let me thank both of you gentlemen for your leadership in this area. As we begin to do the reauthorization, I guess 

a couple of things point out in my mind. First, I want to start with 

you, Mr. Secretary. My staff used a strong word, termination. I 

don’t want to use that. I think the leadership should decide on 

whether someone should be terminated. 

But I do think it should be some kind of a shakeup or a moving 

of the chairs. What has happened in the agency? Because I understand that there has been contact with the companies, letting them 

know investigations are going on. What is it that people in the 

agencies need to understand that safety doesn’t have anything to 

do with who is in the Administration. Everybody needs to do their 

job. 

Mr. PORCARI. It is 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 am not going away. It is a process that, as the 

Inspector General pointed out, as we go forward with the action 

plan, we will get into more and more detail. 

Building a culture of safety and keeping that culture of safety in 

the agency is going to require that message from the top. We will 

shortly have a nominee as the administrator. That is an important 

part of the puzzle. The working relationship between the special 

permits process, the enforcement process, our sister agencies within DOT and referrals, all of those need to be fixed and will be, and 

we will make the organizational and personnel changes necessary 

to carry this out. Again, this is a public trust issue, it is a fundamental responsibility. These are substances that are necessary for 

our everyday lives and for our economy, 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 now. 

Ms. BROWN. Well, I want to thank you for your leadership in this 

area. As I said earlier, we have had hearings all over the Country 

22 

where these issues of hazardous materials coming through the community, whether it is the firemen that were talking to us when we 

went to Mrs. Napolitano’s district, whether it was the elected officials, this is the issue that comes up. They are concerned. They 

want to know and they want to know that we are doing our job and 

we have the oversight. So I am very interested in what recommendations you think we need to put in the bill to make sure 

that we have the safeguards there. 

Mr. PORCARI. It is clear, as, again, the Inspector General pointed 

out, from the size of the body 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 

time, as it should. I look forward to working with you through the 

authorization process because it really is an opportunity to fundamentally reevaluate where we are now, where we should be, and 

how that authorization can be one of the mechanisms to get there. 

Ms. BROWN. I understand there are only 35 employees. It is not 

that I am interested in revving up, but we want to know that we 

have the appropriate number and we can use the new technology. 

Mr. PORCARI. Staffing is certainly a part of it. Data is a very important part of it. Any safety process where you 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. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you. 

Mr. Inspector General, thank you again for your leadership in 

this area. You have done a good due diligent job in keeping us informed and doing the oversight that is needed. I guess my question 

to you, in listening to the staff, they indicated there were eight serious violators that have—you know, when we did the research, 

they really have violated all of the rules. What can we do to flag 

them today as we speak? 

Mr. SCOVEL. Ms. Brown, I would 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 acknowledged, proper acquisition of data, 

proper use of that data is a problem with PHMSA. As that problem 

is fixed—and I am very confident that, through the Department’s 

leadership, it will be—that violators of the type you 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 PHMSA, like all modes in DOT, must employ, that those violators are flagged for further compliance reviews and, if necessary, 

any permits or whatever are terminated, suspended, addressed in 

the appropriate fashion as provided for due process and by regulation. 

Ms. BROWN. Do you think that the Department of Transportation 

has the tools that they need working with other safety organizations to do the job for the communities that we represent? 

Mr. SCOVEL. Not yet, ma’am. 

Ms. BROWN. OK. 

23 

Mr. SCOVEL. And the Department itself has acknowledged that, 

both in terms of staff, 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 association special 

permit that we identified dates back to February 1994, and it has 

become a practice, apparently, that nobody has questioned until 

now. So the current crew in Special Permits and Approvals, they 

have been working with what they have been given. They certainly 

need to be re-educated and retrained. 

Ms. BROWN. Well, I am very interested in what your recommendations are as far as what we need to do as we develop and 

move forward on the reauthorization bill. 

Thank you again for your leadership, both gentlemen. 

Mr. SCOVEL. Thank you, ma’am. 

Ms. BROWN. [Presiding] Mrs. Napolitano. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

I am listening with great intent on the hazardous transportation 

of materials. In my particular area, we do a lot of chlorine because 

of water treatment plants that we have and others. Years ago, I 

went to one of the chemical companies to see how they were transporting chlorine. At the time, the transport tubs that were plastic 

were not double-walled. They were beginning to get into doublewalled. 

Well, that poses a great concern because they travel by truck to 

get them to these areas after they unload them from the railroad. 

Concern is there is the current thinking that there is a substitute 

to chlorine or that they should move the chlorine generation plants 

closer to the sanitation districts or to the water districts for being 

able to avoid these long transportation areas or having to transport 

them long distances. 

Are you, in any way, shape or form, aware of anything that they 

are doing in transportation of chlorine gases? 

Mr. PORCARI. Ma’am, I am not personally aware of any changes 

in the transportation of chlorine gases. What I would like to do is 

actually get that information to you and provide it to the Committee. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. It would be very helpful, because I work with 

the Councils of Government and three of them represent probably 

about seventy-some odd cities out of the 85 in Los Angeles County 

alone, and they are all very, very concerned about any releases in 

their area because it is so compact. 

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The other question I have is the hazmat placards on rail cars. 

That has been an issue in my communities for the last 15, 20 

years, that I know of. Some railroad companies supposedly are 

looking to get rid of the hazardous material placards on railroads 

and keeping them within the engineer’s cab. To me, that is ludicrous, because what if that particular train piece is injured or derailed, or in smoke, whatever? Then how are the hazmat folks 

being able to respond what is on that train? 

Mr. PORCARI. Ma’am, the placarding is an important part of the 

safety process, knowing, as you point out, what is in that particular 

rail car or in that container. I am not aware of any pending waiver 

of those requirements, but, again, what I would like to do is go 

back and check that and report to the Committee. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. OK. It seems to me there was some discussion, particularly on this Committee, a 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. So 

that is what brought that particular issue. But I would really appreciate it if this whole Committee would be able to get that information. 

Mr. PORCARI. I would be happy to do that. 

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Mrs. NAPOLITANO. I am assuming that you work with the local 

entities like the Public Utilities Commission and the hazmat areas 

to request from them information about situations where it may 

not be reported by the carriers, whether it is rail or truck. 

Mr. PORCARI. One of the 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 is one of the activities that we have to do 

a better job on and that is part of what we want to do going forward. 

Mr. SCOVEL. Thank you, Mrs. Napolitano. Perhaps our work can 

shed a little bit of light on your concerns. Signage and placarding 

are tremendous issues when we are talking about any first responders, police or fire and so forth. As part of our examination of 

special permit or approval holders, we visited 27 companies in the 

field, and we found that 59 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 placarding that 

would be required for that mode of transportation and that particular hazardous material, and signage problems were prominent 

among those that we identified among those special permit and approval holders. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Well, this concern came out from one of the 

local fire departments, who has a cooper rating, and one of the firemen lived in the general area where one of the BNSF trains would 

go by. He said he couldn’t identify the hazardous placards. So, to 

me, that shows that there is no cooperation between them to be 

able to help standardize them so they can be recognized. 

Then the last question very quickly is budget and personnel. 

While I know that you are short, there are not that many inspectors that you have, what will help to be able to ensure that we continue to focus on public safety? 

Mr. PORCARI. As you correctly point out, ma’am, there are budgetary implications to this. We are looking at that right now, both 

personnel issues, the information technology needs, and there is 

substantial cost involved with that. In the conversations I have had 

with the Secretary on this topic, he has made it very clear that 

safety is paramount, that we need to, as we are working through 

the budget process on a multi-year basis, make sure that that is 

reflected in our priorities. We are in the process of sorting that out 

right now. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think that would 

be very good information for the Committee. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you. 

We are going to stand in informal recess for about 30 minutes. 

We have three votes and we are going to start with my friend when 

we come back. OK? All right, we are in informal recess. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. OBERSTAR. [Presiding] The Committee on Transportation and 

Infrastructure will resume its sitting. Apologies to all witnesses 

and Members and others for the over-long interruption by votes on 

the House Floor. 

There are a few things yet to be reviewed. What troubles me, Mr. 

Secretary and Mr. Scovel, is this June 16 request or previously the 

31 

decision was made by Pipeline and Hazardous Materials, a request 

from FAA to test the compliance of various airlines’ hazmat handling procedures. The FAA made that request in 2005, August of 

2005. 

It took nearly a year for the Office of Pipeline and Hazardous 

Materials to respond, and they denied the request of FAA to undertake compliance testing of their airlines’ hazmat handling procedures, while at the same time approving a number of special permits and extensions and approvals, which are a curious component 

of this agency’s operations. 

How in heaven’s name can they justify that conduct? The words 

of the denial are your application did not contain information to 

demonstrate that your proposal would be in the interest of the public. How can it not be in the interest of the public for the Federal 

Aviation Administration to conduct compliance review of airlines’ 

participation in and compliance with movement of hazardous materials, especially in the aftermath of the Value Jet crash, especially 

in the aftermath of other incidents that we know about, that I 

know about of hazmat movement onboard aircraft? 

Do you want to start, Mr. Scovel? 

Mr. SCOVEL. Mr. Chairman, if I may, I confess I have no answer 

to you. We are as mystified as you appear to be by PHMSA’s response to FAA’s request. I will simply note that FAA’s request was 

taken in response to a recommendation contained in our 2004 report, which examined FAA’s own hazmat program. FAA, to its 

credit, accepted that recommendation, concurred in it and attempted to move out, and apparently was stymied by a PHMSA decision. 

Mr. PORCARI. Mr. Chairman, likewise, I cannot 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 have recently asked 

the FAA if they still believe it is worthwhile doing this and they 

want to do it. They have indicated yes and we are going to go 

ahead and do that. 

If there are concerns about crew members, for example, being 

confused by this labeling, if that was the concern, we can certainly 

make accommodations to notify the crew as to what is going on. 

There are ways to do this. 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 the labeling, packaging, and placement was correct. So FAA is interested in doing it; we are going 

to go ahead and do that. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you for that response, but I would read 

from the request. The background, as Inspector General Scovel just 

said, the FAA says that the Department of Transportation’s Office 

of Inspector General conducted an audit of FAA’s hazardous materials program, issued a report and recommended that FAA develop 

and implement a covert testing program. That information was 

submitted to PHMSA. 

Further, FAA said that the FAA plans to ‘‘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 is the 

responsibility of the agency, to test, to test their own people. They 

32 

conduct internal reviews, audits, and evaluations of FAA 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 hazardous materials. 

All right, thank you for proceeding with that issue and getting 

FAA back on track to doing their responsibilities. 

This is a good lead into the weaknesses found in the processing 

of approvals. The Inspector General’s staff has found this; the Department is aware of it; our Committee investigative staff spent a 

good deal of time reviewing these. Approvals are different from special permits. An approval can be issued only if there is a specific 

provision in the regulation that allows the Office of Hazardous Materials to provide relief from a particular regulation. But consistently there is no showing of the need for that special approval, why 

the relief is requested, and it seems that while special permits have 

a limitation, there is no limitation or time limit on the approvals. 

Mr. Scovel, you have spent a good deal of time on that issue. 

What are your recommendations? 

Mr. SCOVEL. Mr. Chairman, we have a number of recommendations pertaining both to special permits and approvals. Our recommendation, if we were to 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 webbased. We have met, my audit team has met twice with representatives of industry and this is one request that they have pointedly 

addressed to us, not expecting, of course, that we were in any position to approve it, but certainly hoping that we might incorporate 

it into our recommendations for the Committee’s and the Department’s consideration. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Porcari? 

Mr. PORCARI. Mr. Chairman, I agree with the clearly defined and 

uniform part of it. We owe 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 needs to have. We clearly do not have that in 

all cases now. That is one of the things, going forward, that I know 

that we can do very quickly and will do quickly. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. These approvals are not published in the Federal 

Register. Will you direct the agency to do that in the future? 

Mr. PORCARI. The approvals are required to be in the Federal 

Register; they will be in the Federal Register. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Have you sent a directive to PHMSA to do this 

or you just told them verbally that that is what they will do? 

Mr. PORCARI. I believe that they are required in the Federal Register. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Yes, they are, but they are not published; they 

haven’t been. 

Mr. PORCARI. If they are not published, we will make sure that 

they are. 

33 

Mr. OBERSTAR. And once a year PHMSA publishes its final action on special permit applications. Once a year. That is not transparency, openness. That ought to be concurrent with their action. 

Mr. PORCARI. Mr. Chairman, we are clearly living in a different 

era, where it is a lot easier to be transparent. And when we are 

reporting basically in real-time on contacts that we are having in 

meetings, we can certainly have better than annual reporting on 

our permitting process. Again, having it web-based is one of the 

ways to do that. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Now, an issue consistently over 20-plus years 

with this agency, the pipelines activity was grossly under-funded in 

the mid-1980’s. I authored language in Committee and then on the 

House Floor in the appropriation process to increase the number of 

inspector positions for the pipeline inspection program, Federal and 

State, and increased funding for them. That has deteriorated over 

time and fallen off. Overall for the agency, first of all, how many 

inspectors does the agency have now for all of its activities? And 

both Mr. Scovel and Secretary Porcari, what are your recommendations for staffing improvements and increases? 

Mr. SCOVEL. Mr. Chairman, Deputy Secretary Porcari may have 

more recent information than I do, but my audit team, in the 

course of the last 14 months, determined that, at the time of their 

addressing this question, there were 35 inspectors on PHMSA’s 

staff, as has previously been noted here on the record, that are responsible for 300,000 or so entities transporting and shipping and 

packaging hazmat. 

Our staff, we have kicked around the question of how PHMSA 

can gain better control of this inspection process. Certainly, the 

number of inspectors is one key target. As you well know, sir, FAA 

has wrestled with the same question in connection with their inspection process. It is universally acknowledged there can never be 

enough inspectors; however, with the proper risk-based oversight 

system and with the proper staffing study, both of which we think 

are now currently missing from PHMSA’s effort, they can better leverage what they have. 

It is also worth noting, sir, that the other modes in the Department, FMCSA, FAA, FRA, as well as various States, have inspector 

resources. PHMSA must better integrate those resources and leverage them together because they will never have enough inspectors 

of their own. But it is a multi-phased and a multi-pronged effort 

that PHMSA needs to undertake in order to strengthen its inspections. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. So intermodalism would be a benefit to the entire 

inspection process. In the surface transportation assistance bill 

that we have reported from Subcommittee, I create a council on 

intermodalism and an under secretary for intermodalism, and require a monthly meeting of the modal administrators, among other 

responsibilities, to develop a national strategic safety plan to integrate the competencies of all the modes on safety; and, if we get 

this bill enacted, that will be a requirement and will be on the top 

of the priority list. 

Meanwhile, you don’t have to wait for that. Meanwhile, you can 

bring those modal administrators together and ask them to develop 

a common safety plan and how to harness the resources of—it 

34 

should be—it has been said many—one department, one DOT, everyone pulling together. So intermodalism will be a way to do that. 

Mr. PORCARI. Absolutely, Mr. Chairman. First, just on the numbers, there are currently 35 inspectors and 7 field supervisors, for 

a total of 42. 

The point about leveraging other inspectors in the field is a very 

important one that is an obvious way that we can work intermodally, and part of our plan going forward is to do just that, whether 

it is the Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, or any other asset in the Department. 

You can have a force multiplier by doing that. 

Finally, on intermodal safety as an organizing principle, if I may, 

the perspective I am coming from is from a State DOT that is the 

one truly intermodal State DOT. That was how it was organized, 

and one of the early discussions with Secretary LaHood when I 

came on board was safety as an organizing principle at U.S. DOT. 

I do not want to steal the Secretary’s thunder, and 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 intermodal organizing principle that 

the Secretary has directed and perhaps, most appropriately, he 

should describe, but we are moving forward on that right now. 

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Mr. OBERSTAR. That is very encouraging. I am delighted to hear 

that. That is the first good news, structurally, about this Department I have heard in a long time. 

Just a little reminiscence. I was administrative assistant for my 

predecessor, John Blatnik, who was chair of the Executive and Legislative Reorganization Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations at the time that President Lyndon Johnson proposed establishing a Department of Transportation. He made that 

recommendation in January of 1966 and sent his staff up to meet 

with us and with Senator Magnuson’s staff in the other body, and 

we spent from January through October crafting the proposal to 

bring 34 agencies of Government together under one roof in the Department of Transportation. Hearings and markup in Subcommittee and passage on the House Floor, conference with the 

Senate. In October, President signed the bill. We thought they are 

all going to work together. They haven’t. It has been a disappointment. 

With this legislation, the surface transportation bill, we are going 

to make that legislative change and cause this synergy to happen 

among all the modal administrations, and starting with safety. 

Mr. PORCARI. Well, again, it is a very important point even in the 

absence or preceding any legislation. There is an awful lot that you 

can do as Secretary organizationally, and Secretary LaHood 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 I think of it as low hanging fruit; it 

is something that is relatively quick and easy to do and get some 

measurable benefits from. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. That is very important and good. I encourage you 

and Secretary LaHood to continue pressing forward with this. Also, 

we need to revisit the issue of special permits and approvals and 

the follow-ups to those and this rather incoherent process, two 

years and four years and unlimited time frames. 

Mr. Scovel, do you have some recommendations for how this 

process of permitting can be rationalized? 

Mr. SCOVEL. I do, Mr. Chairman. And if you will permit me to 

offer recommendations for the Committee’s consideration, as well 

as the Department’s, 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 is one that may well be low hanging fruit, in Mr. Porcari’s 

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 will be issued to individual members. However, 

there is still the question of 5,000 members of associations in the 

field perhaps believing that they can continue to operate under special permits issued to their associations. That needs to be addressed. There hasn’t been the level of fitness determination made 

company by company yet, and safety demands it. 

Fitness definition, a precise definition of what constitutes an applicant’s fitness to conduct the activity authorized by the permit or 

approval. 

Next, safety history. 

37 

Mr. OBERSTAR. On that point, isn’t there a standard for fitness 

in FAA? 

Mr. SCOVEL. I believe there is, sir, but—— 

Mr. OBERSTAR. There are the three—fit, willing, and able—and 

fitness is a very clear standard established both in law and in practice in the FAA, and there should be some lessons learned and applied to PHMSA. 

Mr. SCOVEL. I agree, sir. In fact, within the PHMSA context, the 

definition is not nearly as clear as it is applied in other modes. As 

you know, the regulation permits PHMSA to find that an applicant 

is fit based on prior compliance history, information in the application itself, and other information available to the associate administrator. Very broad; too general; not helpful to applicants, as well 

as to those who must administer the process. 

That gets me, really, to my next point, and that is safety history 

as a factor in determining fitness. PHMSA fought and won this 

battle back in 1996. We determined, conducting our own little history study, at the time this regulation was written, PHMSA received industry conducts opposing the use of compliance history to 

assess an applicant’s fitness. 

At the time, RSPA, PHMSA’s 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’s 

ability or willingness to comply with the applicable regulations. Because the associate administrator is considering whether to authorize compliance with specific alternatives to the HMR, 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 is the 

operative language here; it is not required, but it may be considered by the administrator in determining fitness. 

Mystifying, as well, to us is why PHMSA, in the years since 

fighting and winning that battle, has ceded the ground to industry, 

for whatever reasons that can’t be known to us at this point. But 

PHMSA 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 applicant itself: action, process, 

package. That is pretty much all that they are looking at. That 

seems to us to fly in the face of common sense and we strongly recommend that the Department address that. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Should that be changed in law? Should law itself 

define that more clearly, instead of leaving it to regulation that can 

be changed and opposed and undermined from time to time? 

Mr. SCOVEL. That is a policy question, of course, sir, but we 

would think that it is an important enough point to be enshrined 

in law. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you. 

Mr. SCOVEL. A couple of other points, and then I will yield. 

Level of safety, as well, needs to be addressed for the benefit of 

applicants, as well as 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 PHMSA and the other modes in determining safety history, for one, enacting on applications. 

38 

Next, an enhanced risk-based approach to oversight. As our testimony today, our statement made clear, PHMSA does not cite as a 

priority factor in its oversight system whether a hazmat carrier 

may be a holder of special permits or approvals. We think that it 

is important enough to be included as a priority factor in addition 

to what PHMSA already recognizes; accident investigation, thirdparty complaint inquiries, and fitness inspections. 

Finally, longstanding safety concerns, Mr. Chairman; time 

frames for resolving matters like bulk explosive vehicle questions, 

lithium batteries, and, as Mr. Porcari has mentioned, a process at 

the Department level to resolve such intermodal disputes. 

Thank you. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. That is a very comprehensive list. Thank you for 

that listing. 

Mr. Secretary, do you want to respond to those points? 

Mr. PORCARI. Just very briefly, Mr. Chairman. I think those are 

all very valid points. I would like to just underscore one of them 

in particular, the relevance of safety history in the fitness definition. We should—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. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you. Whatever you can do by regulatory 

change you should do. You are clearly on track toward doing that, 

and whatever else is necessary we will incorporate in legislative 

language in our crafting of the next transportation bill. 

Inspector General Scovel, have you reviewed the Department’s 

program for the future, the proposals listed in the Secretary’s statement? This plan of action looks good on its surface. It seems to me 

that there is very specific time frames—within 10 working days, 

within 15 days, within 15 days, within 30 days—actions to be 

taken. Looks to me like a good checklist. 

Mr. SCOVEL. It is, sir. Frankly, we were very impressed that the 

Department’s senior leadership acted as quickly as they have in 

order to attempt to impose control from their level over PHMSA’s 

process for special permits and approval, and that was really the 

subject matter of our own inquiry. As I previously noted this morning, details remain to be filled in. Although the action plan addresses special permits, very little, if any, mention made of approvals, for instance, a point that you made. And a 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 5,000-plus permits. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. And as a corollary to that point, shouldn’t there 

be some guidance, direction, understanding of a culture of safety of 

having an arm’s length relationship with those whom the agency 

regulates? 

Mr. SCOVEL. Yes. And that is a point that has been made repeatedly in this hearing room mode to mode to mode. As we look at it, 

Mr. Chairman, partnership is the term that is 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 

39 

of any safety culture re-education effort within PHMSA, as well as 

other modes. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Secretary, apparently, you agree with that? 

Mr. PORCARI. Mr. Chairman, you will find me agreeing that it is 

important to have 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. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. This is the third in a series of failures within the 

Department. Well, the Coast Guard is 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 to self-approve their work. 

The second was the FAA and the customer service index. 

And the third now is PHMSA. Enough. We are drawing the line, 

cleaning house, changing the culture, putting it on the right track. 

We appreciate what you are doing and we will continue to oversee. 

Safety is an ever-vigilant responsibility. And for those who think 

that we have had the hearing, we had to look at the agency, and 

we can now take a deep breath and they will all go away, I am not 

going away and safety is not going away. 

I grew up in the family of an underground miner, 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—he was chairman of the safety committee for 26 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 on the cage broke and there 

was nothing to stop their fall to their death. You never relax your 

vigilance on safety. 

Thank you very much for your testimony. 

Mr. PORCARI. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Our next witness is Mr. Lon Santis, Manager of 

Technical Services for the Institute of Makers of Explosives. 

Mr. Santis, welcome to our Committee and to the hearing. Your 

full statement will be included in the record. You may summarize 

as you wish and proceed with your statement, which I read in 

great detail. 

TESTIMONY OF LON D. SANTIS, MANAGER, TECHNICAL SERVICES, INSTITUTE OF MAKERS OF EXPLOSIVES, WASHINGTON, DC. 

Mr. SANTIS. Thank you, Chairman Oberstar. 

IME members are dependent on special permits, or SPs, issued 

by PHMSA to transport bulk blasting agents and oxidizers in 

multi-purpose bulk trucks, or MBTs, that are specially designed for 

this purpose. The SPs 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 fatality, injury, or explosion attributed to the hazardous materials onboard these vehicles in over 10 million trips. This is only through the continual vigilance that the Chairman mentions and a culture of safety that exists within the explosives industry. 

40 

Nonetheless, IME has cooperated over the years with PHMSA on 

enhancements to the safety of this type of transportation, the most 

recent effort starting in May of 2008. After considerable study, we 

expect to adopt measures in our standard for this activity, SLP-23, 

by the end of this year that address the root causes of rollover accidents with these vehicles. 

If SPs authorizing the use of MBTs are revoked or severely restricted, the resulting damage to the U.S. economy could be 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 MBTs by other modes or packaging. 

Additionally, risk to the public would increase because more sensitive products would replace those shipped by SP and more vehicles would be on the highways. 

Given the importance of MBTs to the national recovery and infrastructure development, we urge the Committee to take a reasoned and rational approach. This has not been entirely the case 

with the recent OIG management advisory and PHMSA’s 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 MBTs 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 MBT has a center of gravity 

height of 75 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 MBTs is many times better than 

other vehicles with the same center of gravity height and wheel 

width. These materials will not accidentally explode from the forces 

encountered in the normal course of transportation if the transportation is compliant with the HMR. 

In an MBT accident, the risk is not increased if the materials 

mix, because sensitization only occurs within certain ranges of mixtures and methods of mixing that will not occur in an accident. 

There is very little probability that the bulk materials may explode 

in a fire, and MBTs minimize the overall risk to the public. 

Even though several MBTs have burned to the ground without 

incident, it is out of an abundance of caution that we recommend 

that when explosives or oxidizers are involved in a fire, that a 

standoff 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, 

IME and PHMSA updated and distributed a training program to 

every fire department in the United States of America in 2003 on 

how to respond to these incidents. 

Several recommendations have been made that would impose unreasonable and onerous requirements on MBTs and increase risk. 

Perhaps the most serious of these is the suggestion to prohibit the 

transportation of class 8 materials on MBTs. This prohibition 

41 

would jeopardize the latest advancement in MBT safety, which involves sensitizing non-explosive materials after they have been 

loaded into bore holes by the MBT. The result would be more vehicles on the highway and more sensitive explosive products being 

transported and used. 

IME has shared recommendations with both the OIG and 

PHMSA on how the SP 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. MBTs 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. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. You raise concern about characterization of the 

conveyance of explosive materials. I don’t know to whom you have 

reference saying that they are bombs on wheels, but I have never, 

nor have my staff, characterized the movement of explosives by the 

industry in that way. 

And you may be very understandably sensitive to comparison to 

the McVeigh situation you cite in your testimony. It is not unreasonable for people 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. That Murrow Building explosion certainly captured the public attention and fear and 

concern. 

But that is not the purpose of this hearing. We are not here to 

ride herd on any individual company, but on the process by which 

PHMSA conducts its business and its oversight and establishes 

standards, and the issuance of special permits and then the approval process. The law makes it very clear the Secretary shall 

publish in the Federal Register a notice that an application for 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 PHMSA over all its years. 

But there is no such requirement for an approval, and there are 

vastly more approvals than there are special permits. In what way 

would the industry be disadvantaged if those approvals also were 

published in the Federal Register as a means of public notification? 

Mr. SANTIS. I am not sure the industry would be disadvantaged. 

However, I am not sure there would be a lot to gain by that. An 

approval is granted when a product meets certain specified criteria. 

It is a black or white issue; it either meets the standard, it passes 

the test that the United Nations has set or it doesn’t. 

Therefore, it is quite different than a special permit, in which the 

special permit is granted when someone wants to engage in an activity that is slightly different than what the regulations require. 

The approvals must be given based on what the regulations require. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. But you have no objection to approvals being published in the Federal Register so that they are available to the public? 

Mr. SANTIS. My only concern would be an added responsibility on 

an already stretched thin workforce. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. That is their job. They can work more efficiently. 

And we will provide them with additional personnel. We will make 

42 

sure there is funding and staffing to carry this out. But the public 

interest should come first. 

You also, in your testimony, state ‘‘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 and what do 

you mean by adding measure? Explain that statement. 

Mr. SANTIS. We have had a standard for MBTs for a number of 

years. When it was brought to our attention that PHMSA 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 error and tire issues. These 

trucks have to travel off-road on very severe conditions, and 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 IME members, and this is one of the first times we have done this, we 

reached out to the entire regulated community and invited them to 

the table to talk about how we could improve 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 to driver training, relative to the quality of 

tires. 

That is currently going through our subcommittee, will most likely be reviewed by the Committee that is 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. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. I am very much familiar with the stability needed 

for MBTs; they operate in my district in the iron ore mines; travel 

on the highway in order to get to the mining location and then on 

location they have to go on very rugged terrain, and they have to 

have very careful training of the drivers and structural integrity of 

the vehicles 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 have very powerful explosive 

capabilities, don’t mix and accidentally explode. 

In the case of mining explosives for both coal mining, iron ore 

mining, and other hard rock mineral blasting, the most serious 

thing that has occurred has been a terrible fire, a fire that, in one 

case, burned for days. Extreme heat; melted aluminum, melted 

steel. That is very serious. 

So I understand what you are talking about. But I think that the 

agency itself needs to be doing a better job, and the question I 

would have is what is your view on conduct of safety fitness review 

by PHMSA of agencies that apply for special permits and approvals. Should they review the incident history? Should they review, 

as the Inspector General said, the safety history of the agency, its 

compliance history? 

Mr. SANTIS. Well, I would say that it would stand to reason that 

PHMSA would examine data generated by the Federal Motor CarVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:44 Mar 23, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00066 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\52158.TXT JEAN
43 

rier Safety Administration. My understanding is that that agency 

is 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. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Very good. We will make sure that they do that. 

Has PHMSA told your members, separate from the show cause 

letter, that their permits will be revoked? Have you heard any comment from PHMSA that permits will be revoked? 

Mr. SANTIS. Not specifically. I think everyone realizes that a special permit is a privilege and that the specter of revocation always 

exists and that they must maintain the requirements to continue 

to hold that special permit. So they certainly know what can happen. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. I raise that point because it has come back to me 

and to staff from various of your members that this hearing and 

this review by the Inspector General is going to result in revocations, and there is no such plan underway by the Inspector General, nor is it the purpose of this hearing to do that. But PHMSA 

does propose modifications to special permits. Do you have any 

comments? Are you aware of their proposals and do you have comments on them? 

Mr. SANTIS. Yes. You are referring to the show cause letters, I 

believe? 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Yes. 

Mr. SANTIS. Yes. There are, well, essentially, most of these recommendations I think are based on the recommendations that the 

Institute brought to PHMSA in March of this year, so the things 

that we recommended and that are going to go into SLP-23 that 

are in the show cause letter, we certainly support. 

However, we do believe there are a couple of things in here that 

are not justified on a cost benefit basis. We believe that some technology that is discussed in here doesn’t exist. We are not aware, 

for example, of a fuel cutoff device for these types of vehicles that 

will function at 45 degrees angle. We are just not aware of it. 

So there are some concerns and I think they have been expressed 

to the agency, and hopefully this process will continue on and we 

will come up with the meaningful and important additions to 

these—— 

Mr. OBERSTAR. One of the proposals of PHMSA is driver qualification and training, ‘‘The special permit grantee must annually 

audit its program for the qualification and training of the persons 

who operate the vehicles authorized under these special permits’’ 

and lists three reasons or standards to be observed in that qualification and training. Do you have any objection to that? 

Mr. SANTIS. No. No. We train our drivers way beyond what the 

regulations require in our industry, and—— 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Are their records annually or periodically reviewed, that is, apart from the commercial driver license activity, 

their conduct in driving of their personal vehicle? 

Mr. SANTIS. Yes. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. If they are stopped for a DUI? 

Mr. SANTIS. Yes. Yes, we support that. We support examining a 

driver’s off-duty record in consideration of their fitness to drive an 

MBT, certainly. 

44 

Mr. OBERSTAR. That is a standard that is used in aviation and 

that is important, and I am glad you are in conformity. 

On vehicle inspections and tire standards, do you have any objections to those items? You are familiar with them? 

Mr. SANTIS. 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 until several 

years, and it is stored in a climate controlled condition so that it 

doesn’t deteriorate. So we believe in the six year service life. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Well, our purpose is not to modify or propose 

modifications of this show cause order, but it is part of the compliance spirit that I think is important both with PHMSA and within 

the industry. Do you have any other comments that you would like 

to make about questions I raised with Mr. Scovel or the Deputy 

Secretary? 

Mr. SANTIS. Only that we think that PHMSA must have the information that they need to do their job, and, in my experience, 

IME has always provided the information and PHMSA has made 

the decision. Providing that information gives PHMSA power. It especially gives PHMSA 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. IME has an NGO status; DOT is the United States’ representative. At those meetings in Geneva, the IME and PHMSA 

come together to represent the United States. We are on the same 

team at the United Nations, and that requires a good deal of good 

deal of close interaction, simply because PHMSA does not have the 

personnel and the information on explosives that the industry has 

because it is our life’s work, and they must regulate an entire cadre 

of hazardous materials and know a little bit about a lot of things; 

whereas, we have people that know pretty much everything about 

one thing. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. That is an interesting observation. The U.S. does 

this in many other—the International Maritime Organization has 

both U.S. Government and industry representatives, and the same 

with ICAO, the International Civil Aviation Organization, there 

are industry and Government personnel represented. So that is an 

interesting thought. 

As we conclude—I have to be at another Committee activity 

shortly—I want to just highlight your comment which was in your 

written testimony and which you delivered in your oral presentation: there has not been sufficient attention paid to the absence 

of any fatalities or injuries from these accidents. The absence of 

failure is not the presence, is not necessarily the presence of safety. 

That comment would be similar to saying that too much attention was paid in 1984 and 1985 to the reports of near midair events 

by the FAA when no fatalities resulted from aircraft flying too close 

to each other in the airspace. We got those reports. I was Chair of 

the Investigations Oversight Subcommittee at the time and the industry said, oh, pooh pooh, that doesn’t mean that the airspace is 

unsafe. 

45 

And then two aircraft collided over Cerritos, California. We had 

repeatedly raised this issue after we had repeatedly said we need 

something like a traffic collision avoidance systems and mode sea 

transponders onboard aircraft. And then when fatality occurred, 

the agency responded that is a graveyard tombstone mentality that 

must be banished from the safety arena. And it doesn’t help to say 

these are incidents; these are accidents. These are situations that 

can and do result in fatalities. 

So these sorts of conditions are precursor to impending failure. 

Mr. SANTIS. That is 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 anytime something happens that 

could lead to a more serious event, and I believe that is how this 

industry has been able to improve itself to the point where—well, 

let me go back 100 years, when—— 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Black powder and dynamite. 

Mr. SANTIS. Black powder, dynamite. Hundreds of people being 

killed annually in events. Today, we can count annual fatalities 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 

is through looking at lessons learned. For example, the rollovers. 

There were no explosions, fires from the rollovers. 

But that is not acceptable to us. The rollover indicates that there 

could be something happen; therefore, we need to address the rollover. Any time there is something that happens in our workplace 

that is the near miss, the close call, whatever word you use, we pay 

enormous amount of attention to it and treat it almost as if it was 

the catastrophe, because we know it could have been; and then we 

look at it and say what could we do to prevent that near miss from 

happening. We are ahead of the disaster that way. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. I thank you for those comments and hope that 

you take this hearing as a call to continued vigilance, and that the 

agency straightens out, they adopt a compliance attitude and an 

oversight responsibility. We will continue to review and monitor 

the actions of the agency and the industry’s compliance therewith. 

Thank you very much for your testimony. 

Mr. SANTIS. Thank you. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 1:22 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

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