II 

116TH CONGRESS 

2D SESSION S. 4120 

To enhance the early warning reporting requirements for motor vehicle 

manufacturers, and for other purposes. 

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

JULY 1, 2020 

Mr. BLUMENTHAL (for Mr. MARKEY (for himself and Mr. BLUMENTHAL)) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation 

A BILL 

To enhance the early warning reporting requirements for 

motor vehicle manufacturers, and for other purposes. 

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Early Warning Report5 ing System Improvement Act of 2020’’. 

6 SEC. 2. ADDITIONAL EARLY WARNING REPORTING RE7 QUIREMENTS. 

8 (a) IN GENERAL.—Section 30166(m) of title 49, 

9 United States Code, is amended— 

10 (1) in paragraph (3)— 


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1 (A) in subparagraph (C)— 

2 (i) by striking ‘‘The manufacturer’’ 

3 and all that follows through ‘‘shall report’’ 

4 and inserting the following: 

5 ‘‘(i) IN GENERAL.—The manufacturer 

6 of a motor vehicle or motor vehicle equip7 ment, including the manufacturer of an 

8 autonomous vehicle or an automated driv9 ing system, shall report’’; and 

10 (ii) by adding at the end the fol11 lowing: 

12 ‘‘(ii) INCIDENTS WITH INJURIES OR

13 FATALITIES.—If an incident described in 

14 clause (i) involves a serious injury or fatal15 ity, the Secretary shall require the manu16 facturer to submit, as part of the incident 

17 report under clause (i)— 

18 ‘‘(I) each initial claim or notice 

19 document that notified the manufac20 turer of the incident; 

21 ‘‘(II) any police reports or other 

22 documents describing or recon23 structing the incident; 


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1 ‘‘(III) any amendments or sup2 plements to the documents described 

3 in subclause (I), except— 

4 ‘‘(aa) medical documents 

5 and bills; and 

6 ‘‘(bb) property damage in7 voices or estimates; and 

8 ‘‘(IV) the assessment of the man9 ufacturer of the circumstances that 

10 led to the incident, including the anal11 ysis of the manufacturer with respect 

12 to the claims or notices with respect 

13 to allegations of a defect. 

14 ‘‘(iii) REPORTING REQUIREMENTS.— 

15 Notwithstanding section 579.21 of title 49, 

16 Code of Federal Regulations (or a suc17 cessor regulation), no report under this 

18 subsection shall be limited by model year.’’; 

19 and 

20 (B) by adding at the end the following: 

21 ‘‘(D) SETTLEMENTS.—Notwithstanding 

22 any order entered in a civil action restricting 

23 the disclosure of information, a manufacturer of 

24 a motor vehicle or motor vehicle equipment 

25 shall comply with the requirements of this subVerDate Sep 11 2014 05:01 Jul 13, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S4120.IS S4120

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1 section and any regulation promulgated under 

2 this subsection.’’; 

3 (2) in paragraph (4), by striking subparagraph 

4 (C) and inserting the following: 

5 ‘‘(C) DISCLOSURE.— 

6 ‘‘(i) IN GENERAL.—The information 

7 provided to the Secretary pursuant to this 

8 subsection— 

9 ‘‘(I) shall be disclosed publicly 

10 unless— 

11 ‘‘(aa) exempt from disclo12 sure under section 552(b) of title 

13 5, subject to clause (ii); or 

14 ‘‘(bb) the information is sub15 ject to an order entered in a civil 

16 action restricting the disclosure 

17 of information; and 

18 ‘‘(II) shall be entered into a pub19 lic early warning reporting database 

20 established by the Secretary in a man21 ner that is searchable by manufac22 turer name, vehicle or equipment 

23 make and model name, model year, 

24 and type of potential defect. 


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1 ‘‘(ii) INAPPLICABILITY OF CONFIDEN2 TIALITY PROVISIONS.—In administering 

3 clause (i)(I), the Secretary shall not con4 sider section 552(b)(4) of title 5 to prevent 

5 the public disclosure of— 

6 ‘‘(I) production information re7 garding passenger motor vehicles; 

8 ‘‘(II) information on incidents in9 volving death or serious injury; 

10 ‘‘(III) numbers of property dam11 age claims; or 

12 ‘‘(IV) aggregated numbers of 

13 consumer complaints.’’; and 

14 (3) by adding at the end the following: 

15 ‘‘(6) USE OF EARLY WARNING REPORTS.—The 

16 Secretary shall consider information gathered under 

17 this section in proceedings described in sections 

18 30118 and 30162.’’. 

19 (b) REGULATIONS.—To promote the public avail20 ability of information provided to the Secretary of Trans21 portation under subsection (m) of section 30166 of title 

22 49, United States Code, and the utility of that information 

23 to inspection and investigation activities conducted by the 

24 Secretary under that section, not later than 2 years after 

25 the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall proVerDate Sep 11 2014 05:01 Jul 13, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S4120.IS S4120

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1 mulgate regulations to carry out this section and the 

2 amendments made by this section. 

3 (c) NULLIFICATION OF EARLY WARNING REPORTING

4 CLASS DETERMINATION REGULATIONS.—On the effective 

5 date of the regulations promulgated under subsection (b), 

6 the regulations with respect to early warning reporting 

7 class determinations contained in appendix C of part 512 

8 of title 49, Code of Federal Regulations (as in effect on 

9 that date), shall have no force or effect. 

10 SEC. 3. IMPROVED NATIONAL HIGHWAY TRAFFIC SAFETY 

11 ADMINISTRATION VEHICLE SAFETY DATA12 BASES. 

13 (a) IN GENERAL.—Not later than 2 years after the 

14 date of enactment of this Act, and after consultation with 

15 frequent users of publicly available databases of the Sec16 retary of Transportation (referred to in this section as the 

17 ‘‘Secretary’’), the Secretary shall improve public accessi18 bility to information on the publicly accessible vehicle safe19 ty databases of the National Highway Traffic Safety Ad20 ministration by revising the publicly accessible vehicle 

21 safety databases— 

22 (1) to improve organization and functionality, 

23 including design features such as drop-down menus; 


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1 (2) to allow for data from all of the publicly ac2 cessible vehicle safety databases to be searched, sort3 ed, aggregated, and downloaded in a manner— 

4 (A) consistent with the public interest; and 

5 (B) that facilitates easy use by consumers; 

6 (3) to provide greater consistency in presen7 tation of vehicle safety issues; 

8 (4) to improve searchability about specific vehi9 cles and issues through standardization of commonly 

10 used search terms and the integration of databases 

11 to enable each of the databases to be simultaneously 

12 searched using the same keyword search function; 

13 and 

14 (5) to ensure that each document, study, inves15 tigation, inspection, incident report, and other mate16 rials related to an incident that are created or ob17 tained by the National Highway Traffic Safety Ad18 ministration are made publicly available in a timely 

19 manner that is searchable in databases by— 

20 (A) manufacturer name, vehicle or equip21 ment make and model name, and model year; 

22 (B) type of potential defect; 

23 (C) number of injuries or fatalities; and 

24 (D) any other element that the Secretary 

25 determines to be in the public interest. 


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1 (b) INSPECTION AND INVESTIGATION INFORMA2 TION.—The Secretary shall— 

3 (1) provide public notice of each inspection or 

4 investigation activity conducted by the Secretary 

5 under section 30166 of title 49, United States Code; 

6 and 

7 (2) make each notice described in paragraph 

8 (1), each written response by a manufacturer to 

9 such a notice, and each notice of any enforcement 

10 action or other action taken as a result of an inspec11 tion or investigation described in that paragraph— 

12 (A) available to consumers on the Internet 

13 not later than 5 days after the notice is issued 

14 or the written response is received; and 

15 (B) searchable by manufacturer name, ve16 hicle or equipment make and model name, 

17 model year, system or component, and the type 

18 of inspection or investigation being conducted. 

Æ 


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