[Federal Register Volume 60, Number 57 (Friday, March 24, 1995)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 15529-15531]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 95-7351]



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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

49 CFR Part 575

[Docket No. 95-19; Notice 1]
RIN 2127-AF-64


Consumer Information Regulations; Fees for Course Monitoring 
Tires and for Use of Traction Skid Pads

AGENCY: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 
Department of Transportation.

ACTION: Notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM).

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SUMMARY: This notice proposes to amend NHTSA's consumer information 
regulations on uniform tire quality grading by establishing fees for 
the purchase of treadwear course monitoring tires and for the use of 
the traction skid pads at NHTSA's Uniform Tire Quality Grading Test 
Facility in San Angelo, Texas.

DATES: Comments. Comments must be received on or before May 23, 1995.

ADDRESSES: Comments should refer to the docket and notice numbers above 
and be submitted to: Docket Section, National Highway Traffic Safety 
Administration, 400 Seventh Street, SW, Washington, DC 20590. Docket 
hours are 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. Clive Van Orden, Office of Vehicle 
Safety Compliance, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 400 
Seventh Street, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20590. (202-366-2830).

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Section 203 of the National Traffic and 
Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 directed the Secretary of 
Transportation to prescribe standards establishing ``a uniform quality 
grading system for motor vehicle tires.'' Those standards are found at 
49 CFR 575.104. For the purpose of aiding consumers in making an 
informed choice in the purchase of passenger car tires, the standards 
require motor vehicle and tire manufacturers and tire brand owners to 
label such tires with information indicating their relative performance 
in the areas of treadwear, traction, and temperature resistance.
    The uniform tire quality grading standards require treadwear 
performance to be evaluated on a specific roadway course, approximately 
400 miles in length, which was established by NHTSA in the vicinity of 
Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas. The course is designed 
to produce treadwear rates that are generally representative of those 
encountered by tires in public use. The standards require manufacturers 
to correct the projected mileage obtained for tested tires to account 
for environmental and other variations that occur during testing on the 
course. This is done by comparing the performance of the tested tires 
to that of course monitoring tires placed on a vehicle that is part of 
the same convoy as the vehicles on which the tires being tested are 
placed. The course monitoring tires are specially manufactured under 
controlled conditions for NHTSA so that they can be used as a standard 
for grading the tires being tested. Section 575.104(e)(ii) of the 
standards states that ``the course monitoring tires are made available 
by the NHTSA at Goodfellow Air Force Base, San Angelo, Tex., for 
purchase by any persons conducting tests at the test course.''
    The uniform tire quality grading standards also require that tire 
traction be ``evaluated on skid pads that are established, and whose 
severity is monitored, by the NHTSA * * *.'' 49 CFR 575.104(f)(1). As 
further described in the standards, these test pads are paved with 
asphalt and concrete surfaces that have specified locked-wheel traction 
coefficients when evaluated in a manner prescribed in the standards. 
Two of these traction skid pads have been constructed at NHTSA's 
Uniform Tire Quality Grading Test Facility in San Angelo. This facility 
also includes an instrumented vehicle and test trailer, and maintenance 
support equipment. In addition to this government test facility, 
traction skid pads have been constructed at several commercial 
facilities. These include the Transportation Research Center's facility 
in East Liberty, Ohio, Juan Lopez in Laredo, Texas (formerly the 
Uniroyal Proving Grounds), Firestone's facility in Fort Stockton, 
Texas, General Tire's Test Track in Uvalde, Texas, and the Smithers 
Transportation Test Center in Pecos, Texas. For the purpose of 
evaluating tire traction, manufacturers are not restricted to the use 
of the traction skid pads at the government facility in San Angelo, and 
may use those at any commercial facility.
    The Department of Transportation's Office of Inspector General 
(OIG) recently completed an audit of NHTSA's [[Page 15530]] Uniform 
Tire Quality Grading Test Facility in San Angelo. As a result of this 
audit, the OIG concluded that NHTSA was not recovering the full cost of 
the course monitoring tires that it sells at San Angelo and was not 
charging a user fee for the use of the traction skid pads at that 
facility, contrary to the requirements of Office of Management and 
Budget (OMB) Circular A-25.
    OMB Circular A-25 establishes Federal policy regarding fees 
assessed for Government services and for the sale or use of Government 
goods or resources. The Circular expresses the general policy that 
``[a] user charge * * * will be assessed against each identifiable 
recipient for special benefits derived from Federal activities beyond 
those received by the general public.'' For the purpose of determining 
the amount of user charges to assess, the Circular states that ``user 
charges will be sufficient to recover the full cost to the Federal 
Government * * * of providing the service, resource, or good when the 
Government is acting in its capacity as sovereign.'' Full cost is 
defined in the Circular as ``all direct and indirect costs to any part 
of the Federal Government of providing a good, resource, or service * * 
*.'' The Circular further provides that when the Government is not 
acting in its capacity as sovereign, ``user charges will be based on 
market prices * * *.''
    In selling course monitoring tires to manufacturers, the government 
is acting in its capacity as sovereign, because the manufacturers have 
no practical alternative means of acquiring tires with a specific base 
course wear rate that must be used in grading the treadwear of the 
tires they are testing. Before it was audited by the OIG, NHTSA was 
charging $304.50 for each course monitoring tire that it sold. In its 
audit report, the OIG noted that this amount was not sufficient to 
recover the full cost incurred by the government in furnishing these 
tires. In order to recover this full cost, NHTSA raised the charge for 
each course monitoring tire to $379.00 in January, 1995. Through this 
notice, NHTSA is proposing to formally establish $379.00 as the fee for 
each course monitoring tire that it sells. This amount was derived by 
performing the following calculation for the 700 course monitoring 
tires that are purchased annually by NHTSA:

Purchase price of course monitoring tires...................    $175,000
General facility costs relating to tires....................       3,400
Warehouse storage fees......................................      24,000
Salaries relating to tires..................................      29,825
Testing fees to establish base course wear rate for tires...      32,800
                                                             -----------
    Total...................................................     265,025
Number of tires purchased= 700                                          
$265,025/700 = $378.61 cost per tire.                                   
                                                                        

    Because manufacturers are not required to use the traction skid 
pads at NHTSA's San Angelo facility for the purpose of meeting the tire 
traction grading requirements of 49 CFR 575.104(d), and may use any of 
the several commercial facilities that are available for that purpose, 
the government is not acting as sovereign in making the San Angelo 
facility available for traction tests. Accordingly, the government may 
charge a market rate for the use of the traction pads. Based on an 
agency review of the rates charged by commercial facilities, NHTSA 
proposes to assess a user charge of $288 per day for the use of the 
traction skid pads at San Angelo. While not exceeding market rates, 
such a charge would be sufficient for NHTSA to recover the costs that 
can be allocated to industry use of its traction skid pads. Those costs 
are calculated as follows, based on an equivalent of 360 days of 
industry use in 1993:

Skid pad calibration expenses...............................      $6,210
General facility costs relating to skid pads................       7,140
Depreciable items (skid system, water truck, air compressor,            
 skid track, tractor sweeper, equipment, buildings).........      65,904
Salaries relating to skid pads..............................      24,375
                                                             -----------
    Total...................................................     103,629
$103,629/360 days industry use = $287.86 cost per day.                  
                                                                        

Rulemaking Analyses and Notices

1. Executive Order 12866 (Federal Regulatory Planning and Review) and 
DOT Regulatory Policies and Procedures

    This proposal was not reviewed under E.O. 12866. NHTSA has analyzed 
this proposal and determined that it is not ``significant'' within the 
meaning of the Department of Transportation's regulatory policies and 
procedures.

2. Regulatory Flexibility Act

    In accordance with the Regulatory Flexibility Act, NHTSA has 
evaluated the effects of this action on small entities. Based upon this 
evaluation, I certify that the proposed amendment would not have a 
significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. 
Motor vehicle and tire manufacturers and tire brand owners typically 
would not qualify as small entities. This amendment would affect small 
businesses, small organizations, and small governmental units to the 
extent that these entities purchase vehicles and tires. However, 
because the user fees proposed in this amendment could be spread across 
a manufacturer's entire production, the amendment would have a 
negligible cost impact on vehicles and tires. For these reasons, 
vehicle manufacturers, small businesses, small organizations, and small 
governmental units that purchase motor vehicles would not be 
significantly affected by the proposed user fees. Accordingly, no 
regulatory flexibility analysis has been prepared.

3. Executive Order 12612 (Federalism)

    This action has been analyzed in accordance with the principles and 
criteria contained in Executive Order 12612, and it has been determined 
that the proposed rule would not have sufficient Federalism 
implications to warrant preparation of a Federalism Assessment. No 
State laws would be affected.

4. National Environmental Policy Act

    The agency has considered the environmental implications of this 
proposed rule in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act 
of 1969 and determined that the proposed rule would not significantly 
affect the human environment.

5. Civil Justice Reform

    This proposed rule would not have any retroactive effect. Under 
section 103(d) of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act (49 
U.S.C. 30111), whenever a Federal motor vehicle safety standard is in 
effect, a state may not adopt or maintain a safety standard applicable 
to the same aspect of performance which is not identical to the Federal 
standard. Section 105 of the Act (49 U.S.C. 30161) sets forth a 
procedure for judicial review of final rules establishing, amending or 
revoking Federal motor vehicle safety standards. That section does not 
require submission of a petition for reconsideration or other 
administrative proceedings before parties may file suit in court.

Public Comments

    Interested persons are invited to submit comments on the proposal. 
It is requested but not required that 10 copies be submitted.
    All comments must not exceed 15 pages in length. (49 CFR 553.21). 
Necessary attachments may be appended to these submissions without 
regard to the 15-page limit. This limitation is intended to encourage 
[[Page 15531]] commenters to detail their primary arguments in a 
concise fashion.
    If a commenter wishes to submit certain information under a claim 
of confidentiality, three copies of the complete submission, including 
purportedly confidential business information, should be submitted to 
the Chief Counsel, NHTSA, at the street address given above, and seven 
copies from which the purportedly confidential information has been 
deleted should be submitted to the Docket Section. A request for 
confidentiality should be accompanied by a cover letter setting forth 
the information specified in the agency's confidential business 
information regulation. 49 CFR part 512.
    All comments received before the close of business on the comment 
closing date indicated above for the proposal will be considered, and 
will be available for examination in the docket at the above address 
both before and after that date. To the extent possible, comments filed 
after the closing date will also be considered. Comments received too 
late for consideration in regard to the final rule will be considered 
as suggestions for further rulemaking action. The NHTSA will continue 
to file relevant information as it becomes available in the docket 
after the closing date, and it is recommended that interested persons 
continue to examine the docket for new material.
    Those persons desiring to be notified upon receipt of their 
comments in the rules docket should enclose a self-addressed, stamped 
postcard in the envelope with their comments. Upon receiving the 
comments, the docket supervisor will return the postcard by mail.

List of Subjects in 49 CFR Part 575

    Consumer protection, Labeling, Motor vehicle safety, Motor 
vehicles, Rubber and rubber products, Tires.

    In consideration of the foregoing, the agency proposes to amend 
Sec. 575.104, Uniform tire quality grading standards, in Title 49 of 
the Code of Federal Regulations at part 575 as follows:

PART 575--[AMENDED]

    1. The authority citation for Part 575 would continue to read as 
follows:

    Authority: 49 U.S.C. 322, 30111, and 30123; delegation of 
authority at 49 CFR 1.50.

    2. A new appendix D would be added to Sec. 575.104, to read as 
follows:


Sec. 575.104  Uniform tire quality grading standards.

* * * * *

Appendix D--User Fees

    1. Course monitoring tires: A fee of $379.00 will be assessed 
for each course monitoring tire purchased from NHTSA at Goodfellow 
Air Force Base, San Angelo, Tex. This fee is based upon the direct 
and indirect costs attributable to: (a) The purchase of course 
monitoring tires by NHTSA, (b) a pro rata allocation of salaries and 
general facility costs associated with maintenance of the tires, (c) 
warehouse storage fees for the tires, and (d) testing fees paid by 
NHTSA to establish the base course wear rate for the tires.
    2. Use of Government traction skid pads: A fee of $288.00 will 
be assessed for each day that the traction skid pads at Goodfellow 
Air Force Base, San Angelo, Tex. are used. This fee is based upon 
the direct and indirect costs attributable to: (a) Depreciation on 
facilities and equipment comprising or used in conjunction with the 
traction skid pads (i.e., skid system, water truck, air compressor, 
skid track, tractor sweeper, equipment, buildings), (b) the 
calibration of the traction skid pads, and (c) a pro rata allocation 
of salaries and office operating expenses associated with 
maintenance of the traction skid pads.
    3. Fee payments shall be by check, draft, money order, or 
Electronic Funds Transfer System made payable to the Treasurer of 
the United States.
    4. The fees set forth in this appendix continue in effect until 
adjusted by the Administrator of NHTSA. The Administrator reviews 
the fees set forth in this appendix and, if appropriate, adjusts 
them by rule at least every 2 years.

    Issued on: March 21, 1995.
Barry Felrice,
Associate Administrator for Safety Performance Standards.
[FR Doc. 95-7351 Filed 3-23-95; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4910-59-P