I 
114TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. R. 5126 
To enhance the early warning reporting requirements for motor vehicle 
manufacturers. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
APRIL 29, 2016 
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. 
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 2016’’. 
SEC. 2. ADDITIONAL EARLY WARNING REPORTING RE-
QUIREMENTS. 
Section 30166(m) of title 49, United States Code is 
amended— 
(1) in paragraph (3)(C)— 
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(A) by striking ‘‘The manufacturer’’ and 
inserting the following: 
‘‘(i) IN
GENERAL.—The manufac-
turer’’; and 
(B) by adding at the end the following: 
‘‘(ii) FATAL INCIDENTS.—If an inci-
dent described in clause (i) involves fatali-
ties, the Secretary shall require the manu-
facturer to submit, as part of its incident 
report— 
‘‘(I) all initial claims or notice 
documents that notified the manufac-
turer of the incident; 
‘‘(II) any police reports or other 
documents 
describing 
or 
recon-
structing the incident; and 
‘‘(III) any amendments or sup-
plements to the documents described 
in subclause (I), except for— 
‘‘(aa) 
medical 
documents 
and bills; 
‘‘(bb) property damage in-
voices or estimates; and 
‘‘(cc) documents related to 
damages.’’; 
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(2) in paragraph (4), by amending subpara-
graph (C) to read as follows: 
‘‘(C) DISCLOSURE.— 
‘‘(i) IN
GENERAL.—The information 
provided to the Secretary pursuant to this 
subsection— 
‘‘(I) shall be disclosed publicly 
unless exempt from disclosure under 
section 552(b) of title 5; and 
‘‘(II) shall be entered into the 
early warning reporting database in a 
manner that is searchable by manu-
facturer name, vehicle or equipment 
make and model name, model year, 
and type of potential defect. 
‘‘(ii) 
PRESUMPTION.—In 
admin-
istering this subparagraph, the Secretary 
shall presume in favor of maximum public 
availability of information. 
‘‘(iii) INAPPLICABILITY OF CONFIDEN-
TIALITY
PROVISIONS.—In administering 
this paragraph, the confidentiality provi-
sions under section 552(b)(4) of title 5 
shall not be construed to prevent the public 
disclosure of— 
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‘‘(I) production information re-
garding passenger motor vehicles; 
‘‘(II) information on incidents in-
volving death or 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.’’. 
SEC. 3. IMPROVED NATIONAL HIGHWAY TRAFFIC SAFETY 
ADMINISTRATION VEHICLE SAFETY DATA-
BASES. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—Not later than 2 years after the 
date of the enactment of this Act, and after consultation 
with frequent users of its publicly available databases, the 
Secretary of Transportation (referred to in this section as 
the ‘‘Secretary’’) shall improve public accessibility to infor-
mation on the National Highway Traffic Safety Adminis-
tration’s publicly accessible vehicle safety databases by— 
(1) improving organization and functionality, 
including design features such as drop-down menus, 
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and allowing for data from all of the publicly acces-
sible vehicle safety databases to be searched, sorted, 
aggregated, and downloaded in a manner— 
(A) consistent with the public interest; and 
(B) that facilitates easy use by consumers; 
(2) providing greater consistency in presen-
tation of vehicle safety issues; 
(3) improving searchability about specific vehi-
cles and issues through standardization of commonly 
used search terms and the integration of databases 
to enable all to be simultaneously searched using the 
same keyword search function; and 
(4) ensuring that all documents, studies, inves-
tigations, inspections, incident reports, and other 
materials related to an incident that are created or 
obtained by the National Highway Traffic Safety 
Administration be made publicly available in a man-
ner 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 all inspection and 
investigation activities conducted by the Secretary 
under section 30166 of title 49, United States Code; 
and 
(2) make such notices, and notice of any en-
forcement or other action taken as a result of an in-
spection or investigation— 
(A) available to consumers on the Internet 
immediately after such 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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