I 
115TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. R. 7192 
To enhance the early warning reporting requirements for motor vehicle 
manufacturers, and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
NOVEMBER 29, 2018 
Mr. CARTWRIGHT introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
Committee on Energy and Commerce 
A BILL 
To enhance the early warning reporting requirements for 
motor vehicle manufacturers, and for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Early Warning Report-
ing System Improvement Act of 2018’’. 
SEC. 2. ADDITIONAL EARLY WARNING REPORTING RE-
QUIREMENTS. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—Section 30166(m) of title 49, 
United States Code, is amended— 
(1) in paragraph (3)— 
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(A) in subparagraph (C)— 
(i) by striking ‘‘The manufacturer’’ 
and all that follows through ‘‘shall report’’ 
and inserting the following: 
‘‘(i) IN GENERAL.—The manufacturer 
of a motor vehicle or motor vehicle equip-
ment, including the manufacturer of an 
autonomous vehicle or an autonomous ve-
hicle driving system, shall report’’; and 
(ii) by adding at the end the fol-
lowing: 
‘‘(ii) INCIDENTS
WITH
INJURIES
OR 
FATALITIES.—If an incident described in 
clause (i) involves a serious injury or fatal-
ity, the Secretary shall require the manu-
facturer to submit, as part of the incident 
report under clause (i)— 
‘‘(I) each initial claim or notice 
document that notified the manufac-
turer of the incident; 
‘‘(II) any police reports or other 
documents 
describing 
or 
recon-
structing the incident; 
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‘‘(III) any amendments or sup-
plements to the documents described 
in subclause (I), except— 
‘‘(aa) 
medical 
documents 
and bills; and 
‘‘(bb) property damage in-
voices or estimates; and 
‘‘(IV) the assessment of the man-
ufacturer of the circumstances that 
led to the incident, including the anal-
ysis of the manufacturer with respect 
to the claims or notices with respect 
to allegations of a defect. 
‘‘(iii) REPORTING
REQUIREMENTS.— 
Notwithstanding section 579.21 of title 49, 
Code of Federal Regulations (or a suc-
cessor regulation), no report under this 
subsection shall be limited by model year.’’; 
and 
(B) by adding at the end the following: 
‘‘(D) 
SETTLEMENTS.—Notwithstanding 
any order entered in a civil action restricting 
the disclosure of information, a manufacturer of 
a motor vehicle or motor vehicle equipment 
shall comply with the requirements of this sub-
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section and any regulation promulgated under 
this subsection.’’; 
(2) in paragraph (4), by striking subparagraph 
(C) and inserting the following: 
‘‘(C) DISCLOSURE.— 
‘‘(i) IN
GENERAL.—The information 
provided to the Secretary pursuant to this 
subsection— 
‘‘(I) shall be disclosed publicly 
unless— 
‘‘(aa) exempt from disclo-
sure under section 552(b) of title 
5, subject to clause (ii); or 
‘‘(bb) the information is sub-
ject to an order entered in a civil 
action restricting the disclosure 
of information; and 
‘‘(II) shall be entered into a pub-
lic early warning reporting database 
established by the Secretary in a man-
ner that is searchable by manufac-
turer name, vehicle or equipment 
make and model name, model year, 
and type of potential defect. 
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‘‘(ii) INAPPLICABILITY OF CONFIDEN-
TIALITY
PROVISIONS.—In administering 
clause (i)(I), the Secretary shall not con-
sider section 552(b)(4) of title 5 to prevent 
the public disclosure of— 
‘‘(I) production information re-
garding passenger motor vehicles; 
‘‘(II) information on incidents in-
volving death or serious injury; 
‘‘(III) numbers of property dam-
age claims; or 
‘‘(IV) aggregated numbers of 
consumer complaints.’’; and 
(3) by adding at the end the following: 
‘‘(6) USE OF EARLY WARNING REPORTS.—The 
Secretary shall consider information gathered under 
this section in proceedings described in sections 
30118 and 30162.’’. 
(b) REGULATIONS.—To promote the public avail-
ability of information provided to the Secretary under sub-
section (m) of section 30166 of title 49, United States 
Code, and the utility of that information to inspection and 
investigation activities conducted by the Secretary under 
that section, not later than 2 years after the date of enact-
ment of this Act, the Secretary of Transportation shall 
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promulgate regulations to carry out this section and the 
amendments made by this section. 
(c) NULLIFICATION OF EARLY WARNING REPORTING 
CLASS DETERMINATION REGULATIONS.—On the effective 
date of the regulations promulgated under subsection (b), 
the regulations with respect to early warning reporting 
class determinations contained in appendix C of part 512 
of title 49, Code of Federal Regulations (as in effect on 
that date), shall have no force or effect. 
SEC. 3. IMPROVED NATIONAL HIGHWAY TRAFFIC SAFETY 
ADMINISTRATION VEHICLE SAFETY DATA-
BASES. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—Not later than 2 years after the 
date of enactment of this Act, and after consultation with 
frequent users of publicly available databases of the Sec-
retary of Transportation (referred to in this section as the 
‘‘Secretary’’), the Secretary shall improve public accessi-
bility to information on the publicly accessible vehicle safe-
ty databases of the National Highway Traffic Safety Ad-
ministration by revising the publicly accessible vehicle 
safety databases— 
(1) to improve organization and functionality, 
including design features such as drop-down menus; 
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(2) to allow for data from all of the publicly ac-
cessible vehicle safety databases to be searched, sort-
ed, aggregated, and downloaded in a manner— 
(A) consistent with the public interest; and 
(B) that facilitates easy use by consumers; 
(3) to provide greater consistency in presen-
tation of vehicle safety issues; 
(4) to improve searchability about specific vehi-
cles and issues through standardization of commonly 
used search terms and the integration of databases 
to enable each of the databases to be simultaneously 
searched using the same keyword search function; 
and 
(5) to ensure that each document, study, inves-
tigation, inspection, incident report, and other mate-
rials related to an incident that are created or ob-
tained by the National Highway Traffic Safety Ad-
ministration are made publicly available in a timely 
manner that is searchable in databases by— 
(A) manufacturer name, vehicle or equip-
ment make and model name, and model year; 
(B) type of potential defect; 
(C) number of injuries or fatalities; and 
(D) any other element that the Secretary 
determines to be in the public interest. 
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(b) INSPECTION
AND
INVESTIGATION
INFORMA-
TION.—The Secretary shall— 
(1) provide public notice of each inspection or 
investigation activity conducted by the Secretary 
under section 30166 of title 49, United States Code; 
and 
(2) make each notice described in paragraph 
(1), each written response by a manufacturer to 
such a notice, and each notice of any enforcement 
action or other action taken as a result of an inspec-
tion or investigation described in that paragraph— 
(A) available to consumers on the Internet 
not later than 5 days after the notice is issued; 
and 
(B) searchable by manufacturer name, ve-
hicle or equipment make and model name, 
model year, system or component, and the type 
of inspection or investigation being conducted. 
Æ 
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