19020 Federal Register / Vol. 61, No. 84 / Tuesday, April 30, 1996 / Proposed Rules

46. Objectives: To provide an

opportunity for public comment and to

provide a record for a Commission

decision on the issues discussed in the

NPRM.

47. Legal Basis: The NPRM is adopted

pursuant to Section 301 of the 1996 Act;

and sections 4(i), 602, 614, 617, 623,

624, 628, 632, of the Communications

Act of 1934, as amended, 47 U.S.C. 154,

522, 534, 537, 543, 544, 548, 552, and

548.

48. Description, potential impact, and

number of small entities affected:

Amending our rules will directly affect

entities which are small business

entities, as defined in Section 601(3) of

the Regulatory Flexibility Act. The 1996

Act reduces or eliminates rate regulation

for many such entities.

49. Reporting, recordkeeping, and

other compliance requirements: None.

50. Federal rules which overlap,

duplicate, or conflict with the

Commission’s proposal: None.

51. Any significant alternatives

minimizing the impact on small entities

and consistent with state objectives: The

NPRM seeks to minimize burdens on

small entities in conformance with the

1996 Act.

52. Comments are solicited: Written

comments are requested on this Initial

Regulatory Flexibility Analysis. These

comments must be filed in accordance

with the same filing deadlines set for

comments on the other issues in this

NPRM, but they must have a separate

and distinct heading designating them

as responses to the Regulatory

Flexibility Analysis. The Secretary shall

send a copy of the NPRM to the Chief

Counsel for Advocacy of the Small

Business Administration in accordance

with Section 603(a) of the Regulatory

Flexibility Act, 5 U.S.C. 601, et seq.

Procedural Provisions

53. Pursuant to applicable procedures

set forth in Sections 1.415 and §§ 1.419

of the Commission’s rules, 47 CFR

1.415, 1.419, interested parties may file

comments on or before May 28, 1996

and reply comments on or before June

28, 1996. To file formally in this

proceeding, you must file an original

and six copies of all comments, reply

comments, and supporting comments.

Parties are also asked to submit, if

possible, draft rules that reflect their

positions. If you want each

Commissioner to receive a personal

copy of your comments, you must file

an original and eleven copies.

Comments and reply comments should

be sent to Office of the Secretary,

Federal Communications Commission,

1919 M Street, N.W., Room 222,

Washington, D.C. 20554, with a copy to

Nancy Stevenson of the Cable Services

Bureau, 2033 M Street, N.W., Room

408A, Washington, D.C. 20554. Parties

should also file one copy of any

documents filed in this docket with the

Commission’s copy contractor,

International Transcription Services,

Inc., 2100 M Street, N.W., Suite 140,

Washington, D.C. 20037. Comments and

reply comments will be available for

public inspection during regular

business hours in the FCC Reference

Center, 1919 M Street, N.W., Room 239,

Washington, D.C. 20554.

54. Parties are also asked to submit

comments and reply comments on

diskette, where possible. Such diskette

submissions would be in addition to

and not a substitute for the formal filing

requirements addressed above. Parties

submitting diskettes should submit

them to Nancy Stevenson of the Cable

Services Bureau, 2033 M Street, N.W.,

Room 408A, Washington, D.C. 20554.

Such a submission should be on a 3.5

inch diskette formatted in an IBM

compatible form using MS DOS 5.0 and

WordPerfect 5.1 software. The diskette

should be submitted in ‘‘read only’’

mode. The diskette should be clearly

labelled with the party’s name,

proceeding, type of pleading (comment

or reply comments) and date of

submission. The diskette should be

accompanied by a cover letter.

55. Written comments by the public

must be submitted by the Office of

Management and Budget (OMB) on the

proposed and/or modified information

collections on or before 60 days after

publication of the Order and NPRM in

the Federal Register. In addition to

filing comments with the Secretary, a

copy of any comments on the

information collections contained

herein should be submitted to Dorothy

Conway, Federal Communications

Commission, Room 234, 1919 M Street,

N.W., Washington, D.C. 20054, or via

the Internet to dconway@fcc.gov, and to

Timothy Fain, OMB Desk Officer, 10236

NEOB, 725–17th Street, N.W.,

Washington, D.C. 20503 or via the

Internet to fainllt@al.eop.gov.

List of Subjects in 47 CFR Part 76

Cable television.

Federal Communications Commission.

William F. Caton,

Acting Secretary.

[FR Doc. 96–10172 Filed 4–26–96; 8:45 am]

BILLING CODE 6712–01–P

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

National Highway Traffic Safety

Administration

49 CFR Part 571

[Docket No. 95–093, Notice 02]

RIN 2127–AF76

Federal Motor Vehicle Safety

Standards; Accelerator Control

Systems

AGENCY: National Highway Traffic

Safety Administration (NHTSA),

Department of Transportation.

ACTION: Notice of proposed rulemaking.

SUMMARY: In this document, NHTSA

proposes to change the scope of the

Federal motor vehicle safety standard

on accelerator control systems. The

current standard prohibits uncontrolled

engine speed in the event of a

disconnection or severance of the

accelerator control system at a single

point, and it also specifies return-to-idle

times for the normal operation of

accelerator control systems. The agency

has tentatively decided that it not

necessary to regulate the normal

operation of accelerator control systems.

Vehicles with return-to-idle times too

great for safe driving would be

unacceptable to prospective vehicle

buyers regardless of a regulation. The

standard will continue to require failsafe performance of accelerator control

systems in the case of a single point

disconnection or severance. This

proposed action is part of NHTSA’s

efforts to implement the President’s

Regulatory Reinvention Initiative.

DATES: Comments are due June 14, 1996.

ADDRESSES: Comments should refer to

the docket number and notice number

cited at the beginning of this notice, and

be submitted to: Docket Section, room

5109, 400 Seventh Street, SW.,

Washington, DC 20590 (Docket hours

are from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.) It is

requested that 10 copies of the comment

be provided.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For

technical issues: Mr. Patrick Boyd,

Office of Crash Avoidance Standards,

NPS–21, telephone (202) 366–6346,

FAX (202) 366–4329.

For legal issues: Ms. Dorothy Nakama,

Office of Chief Counsel, NCC–20, (202)

366–2992, FAX (202) 366–3820.

Both may be reached at the National

Highway Traffic Safety Administration,

400 Seventh St., S.W., Washington,

D.C., 20590. Comments should not be

sent or FAXed to these persons, but

should be sent to the Docket Section.
Federal Register / Vol. 61, No. 84 / Tuesday, April 30, 1996 / Proposed Rules 19021

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

President’s Regulatory Reinvention

Initiative

Pursuant to the President’s March 4,

1995 directive, ‘‘Regulatory Reinvention

Initiative,’’ to the heads of departments

and agencies, NHTSA undertook a

review of all its regulations and

directives. During the course of this

review, the agency identified rules that

it could propose to eliminate as

unnecessary or to amend to improve

their comprehensibility, application or

appropriateness. As described below,

NHTSA has identified Federal Motor

Vehicle Safety Standard No. 124

Accelerator control systems (49 CFR

571.124) as one rule that may benefit

from amendments.

Prior Request for Comments and Public

Response

The agency published a request for

comments (60 FR 62061) on December

4, 1995 to initiate a discussion of the

accelerator control issues frequently

raised by manufacturers in requests for

interpretation and other technical

questions. The questions involved two

general areas. In one area of concern,

manufacturers sought assurance that the

presence of locking engine controls to

facilitate the use on parked trucks of

auxiliary equipment for dumping,

mixing, compacting, etc. would not be

considered violations of the return-toidle timing requirements. Manufacturers

had similar concerns over the degree of

repeatability of idle speed necessary for

compliance with the return-to-idle

provisions. The document raised this

area of discussion because the agency

wanted to clarify the language of the

standard to eliminate concern that the

normal operation of accelerator controls

could be confused with instances of

failure.

The second area of discussion

involved the emerging technology of

electronic accelerator control systems.

The agency had received requests for

interpretation expressing the belief that

electronic accelerator control systems

were exempt from the fail-safe

requirement applied to mechanical

accelerator controls, namely that the

engine return to idle in the event of a

single point disconnection or severance

of the system. The document cited a

1988 interpretation letter to Isuzu

confirming that FMVSS No. 124 applies

to both electronic and mechanical

accelerator controls, and it discussed

the possible need for language in the

standard clarifying the fail-safe

requirement as it applies to electronic

accelerator controls.

Most auto industry commenters

voiced a preference for rescinding the

standard, and the American Trucking

Associations (ATA) expressed the belief

that loss of engine control is not a safety

problem for medium and heavy trucks

because they accelerate more slowly

than cars. The auto industry

commenters suggested that market

forces and litigation pressure are

sufficient to assure fail-safe accelerator

controls without Federal motor vehicle

safety standards. But, they also

commented that, should the agency

disagree about recision, a standard

specifying fail-safe performance in the

least design-specific terms would be

preferable to the solution suggested in

the notice. The document had discussed

clarifying the existing standard’s

language with specific performance

requirements for enumerated types of

disconnections and severances of

mechanical and electronic accelerator

controls.

Notice of Proposed Rulemaking

NHTSA tentatively agrees with the

commenters that market forces are likely

to prevent the introduction of

accelerator controls whose normal mode

of operation is a threat to safety.

Consequently, NHTSA proposes to

eliminate section S5.3 of Standard No.

124 which contains return-to-idle

timing tests for the normal operation of

accelerator controls. The NHTSA

standards compliance test program has

revealed no non- compliances with S5.3

for at least the past eight years. With the

elimination of this section, Standard No.

124 will be concerned solely with failsafe requirements for engine controls.

The effort to define idle speed

tolerances and the normal operation of

controls for operating special equipment

would no longer be necessary.

Two other amendments are necessary

for consistency with the proposed

elimination of S5.3. The fail-safe

performance requirements of S5.1 and

S5.2 cite S5.3 to establish response

times for a return-to-idle position in the

event of a severance. Those citations

would be replaced by a fixed time limit

of 3 seconds in order to establish that

a fail-safe response must be rapid. A

time limit of 3 seconds is consistent

with the least restrictive limit under

S5.3. The other amendment would be a

modification of the scope statement of

S1 to remove normal operation from the

scope of the standard.

However, the market force argument

cannot be made for the fail-safe

performance of accelerator controls. The

normal operating characteristics of a

vehicle’s accelerator control system is

immediately and constantly apparent to

the buyer and user. An unsatisfactory

design will be met with criticism and

rejection. However, the vehicle owner

has no way to evaluate the

consequences of severances of the

control circuits on loss of engine control

and little motivation to do so. In fact, a

comment from the Flxible Corporation,

a major bus manufacturer, indicates that

engine manufacturers may be hesitant to

adequately inform even vehicle

manufacturers about the fail-safe

performance of their electronic

accelerator controls in the mistaken

belief that the devices are exempt from

Standard No. 124. Flxible’s comment

also cast some doubt on the adequacy of

the fail-safe design of some electronic

accelerator controls by observing that

moisture from the steam cleaning of an

engine with an electronic accelerator

control system caused runaway engine

speed.

The agency is not persuaded by

ATA’s contention that loss of engine

control of a heavy commercial vehicle

should be regarded less seriously than

the same failure of a light vehicle. It also

does not believe that the substitution of

tort litigation for federal safety

standards, as suggested by some

commenters, serves the public interest.

Therefore, the agency intends to hold a

public technical meeting, as suggested

by most of the commenters, to hear

ideas for achieving a fail-safe

performance standard for accelerator

controls without design specific

language. The time and place of the

meeting will be announced in a future

notice.

Proposed Effective Date

The proposed elimination of S5.3

from Standard No. 124 would not

compromise safety and would not add

burdens to manufacturers. NHTSA has

tentatively determined that there is good

cause shown that an effective date

earlier than 180 days after issuance is in

the public interest. Accordingly, the

agency proposes that, if adopted in a

final rule, the amendments would have

an effective date of 45 days after the

publication of the final rule in the

Federal Register.

Rulemaking Analyses and Notices

Executive Order 12866 and DOT

Regulatory Policies and Procedures

This rulemaking document was not

reviewed under E.O. 12866, ‘‘Regulatory

Planning and Review.’’ NHTSA has

analyzed the impact of this rulemaking

action and determined that it is not

‘‘significant’’ under the Department of

Transportation’s regulatory policies and

procedures. NHTSA believes that these
19022 Federal Register / Vol. 61, No. 84 / Tuesday, April 30, 1996 / Proposed Rules

proposed amendments, if made final,

would not impose any additional costs

and would not yield any savings

because this rule would not change the

design or equipment of vehicles. Since

there would not be any impacts,

preparation of a full regulatory

evaluation is not warranted.

Regulatory Flexibility Act

NHTSA has also considered the

impacts of this rule under the

Regulatory Flexibility Act. I hereby

certify that this rule would not have a

significant economic impact on a

substantial number of small entities. It

does not affect any costs associated with

the manufacture or sale of vehicles.

Accordingly, an initial regulatory

flexibility analysis has not been

prepared.

National Environmental Policy Act

NHTSA has also analyzed this

proposed rule under the National

Environmental Policy Act and

determined that it would not have any

significant impact on the quality of the

human environment.

Executive Order 12612 (Federalism)

NHTSA has analyzed this proposed

rule in accordance with the principles

and criteria contained in E.O. 12612,

and has determined that it would not

have significant federalism implications

to warrant the preparation of a

Federalism Assessment.

Civil Justice Reform

This proposed rule would not have

any retroactive effect. Under 49 U.S.C.

30103, 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, except to the

extent that the state requirement

imposes a higher level of performance

and applies only to vehicles procured

for the State’s use. 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.

Procedures for Filing Comments

Interested persons are invited to

submit written comments on the

amendments proposed in this

rulemaking action. It is requested but

not required that any comments be

submitted in 10 copies.

Comments must not exceed 15 pages

in length (49 CFR 553.21). This

limitation is intended to encourage

commenters to detail their primary

arguments in concise fashion. Necessary

attachments, however, may be

appended to those comments without

regard to the 15-page limit.

If a commenter wishes to submit

certain information under a claim of

confidentiality, 3 copies of the complete

submission including the purportedly

confidential business information

should be submitted to the Chief

Counsel, NHTSA at the street address

shown above, and 7 copies from which

the purportedly confidential

information has been expunged should

be submitted to the Docket Section. A

request for confidentiality should be

accompanied by a cover letter setting

forth the information specified in 49

CFR 512, the agency’s confidential

business information regulation.

All comments received on or before

the close of business on the comment

closing date indicated above for the

proposal will be considered, and will be

available to the public for examination

in the docket at the above address both

before and after the closing date. To the

extent possible, comments received too

late for consideration in regard to the

final rule will be considered as

suggestions for further rulemaking

action. Comments on the proposal will

be available for public inspection in the

docket. NHTSA will continue file

relevant information in the docket after

the closing date, and it is recommended

that interested persons continue to

monitor the docket for new material.

Those persons desiring to be notified

upon receipt of their comments in the

rules docket should enclose a selfaddressed 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 571

Imports, Motor vehicles, Motor

vehicle safety, Rubber and rubber

products, Tires.

In consideration of the foregoing,

NHTSA proposes to amend 49 CFR part

571 as follows:

PART 571—[AMENDED]

1. The authority citation for part 571

would continue to read as follows:

Authority: 49 U.S.C. 322, 30111, 30115,

30117, and 30166; delegation of authority at

49 CFR 1.50.

2. Section 571.124 would be amended

by revising S1., S5.1 and S5.2 and

removing S5.3 to read as follows:

§ 571.124 Standard No. 124, Accelerator

control systems.

S1. Scope. This standard establishes

requirements for the return of a

vehicle’s throttle to idle position in the

event of a severance or disconnection in

the accelerator control system.

* * * * *

S5.1 There shall be at least two

sources of energy capable of returning

the throttle to the idle position. In the

event of failure of one source of energy

by a single severance or disconnection,

the throttle shall return to the idle

position within 3 seconds from any

accelerator position or speed whenever

the driver removes the opposing

actuating force.

S5.2 The throttle shall return to the

idle position from any accelerator

position or any speed of which the

engine is capable whenever any one

component of the accelerator control

system is disconnected or severed at a

single point. The return to idle shall

occur within 3 seconds measured either

from the time of severance or

disconnection or from the first removal

of the opposing actuating force by the

driver.

Issued on: April 25, 1996.

Barry Felrice,

Associate Administrator for Safety

Performance Standards.

[FR Doc. 96–10667 Filed 4–29–96; 8:45 am]

BILLING CODE 4910–59–P