Early Warning Reporting System Improvement Act of 2021
Bill: S.1407 | Sponsor: Sen. Markey, Edward J. (D-MA)
Policy area: Transportation and Public Works

Summary:
Early Warning Reporting System Improvement Act of 2021
This bill expands early warning reporting requirements for manufacturers of motor vehicles and motor vehicle equipment. It requires such manufacturers to provide additional information on accidents that involve a serious injury or fatality and on settlements in civil actions that restrict disclosure of information.
The bill requires the Department of Transportation (DOT) to make certain improvements to the publicly accessible vehicle safety databases of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. It also requires DOT to provide public notice of each inspection or investigation related to motor vehicle accidents and make notices relating to enforcement actions available online.

To enhance the early warning reporting requirements for motor vehicle 
                 manufacturers, and for other purposes.

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

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Early Warning Reporting System 
Improvement Act of 2021''.

SEC. 2. ADDITIONAL EARLY WARNING REPORTING REQUIREMENTS.

    (a) In General.--Section 30166(m) of title 49, United States Code, 
is amended--
            (1) in paragraph (3)--
                    (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 equipment, 
                        including the manufacturer of an autonomous 
                        vehicle or an automated driving system, shall 
                        report''; and
                            (ii) by adding at the end the following:
                            ``(ii) Incidents with injuries or 
                        fatalities.--If an incident described in clause 
                        (i) involves a serious injury or fatality, the 
                        Secretary shall require the manufacturer to 
                        submit, as part of the incident report under 
                        clause (i)--
                                    ``(I) each initial claim or notice 
                                document that notified the manufacturer 
                                of the incident;
                                    ``(II) any police reports or other 
                                documents describing or reconstructing 
                                the incident;
                                    ``(III) any amendments or 
                                supplements to the documents described 
                                in subclause (I), except--
                                            ``(aa) medical documents 
                                        and bills; and
                                            ``(bb) property damage 
                                        invoices or estimates; and
                                    ``(IV) the assessment of the 
                                manufacturer of the circumstances that 
                                led to the incident, including the 
                                analysis 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 successor 
                        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 subsection 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 
                                        disclosure under section 552(b) 
                                        of title 5, subject to clause 
                                        (ii); or
                                            ``(bb) the information is 
                                        subject to an order entered in 
                                        a civil action restricting the 
                                        disclosure of information; and
                                    ``(II) shall be entered into a 
                                public early warning reporting database 
                                established by the Secretary in a 
                                manner that is searchable by 
                                manufacturer name, vehicle or equipment 
                                make and model name, model year, and 
                                type of potential defect.
                            ``(ii) Inapplicability of confidentiality 
                        provisions.--In administering clause (i)(I), 
                        the Secretary shall not consider section 
                        552(b)(4) of title 5 to prevent the public 
                        disclosure of--
                                    ``(I) production information 
                                regarding passenger motor vehicles;
                                    ``(II) information on incidents 
                                involving death or serious injury;
                                    ``(III) numbers of property damage 
                                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 availability of information 
provided to the Secretary of Transportation under subsection (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 
enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall 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 DATABASES.

    (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 Secretary of Transportation (referred to in 
this section as the ``Secretary''), the Secretary shall improve public 
accessibility to information on the publicly accessible vehicle safety 
databases of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration by 
revising the publicly accessible vehicle safety databases--
            (1) to improve organization and functionality, including 
        design features such as drop-down menus;
            (2) to allow for data from all of the publicly accessible 
        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;
            (3) to provide greater consistency in presentation of 
        vehicle safety issues;
            (4) to improve searchability about specific vehicles 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, investigation, 
        inspection, incident report, and other materials related to an 
        incident that are created or obtained by the National Highway 
        Traffic Safety Administration are made publicly available in a 
        timely manner that is searchable in databases by--
                    (A) manufacturer name, vehicle or equipment 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.
    (b) Inspection and Investigation Information.--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 inspection or investigation described in that 
        paragraph--
                    (A) available to consumers on the Internet not 
                later than 5 days after the notice is issued or the 
                written response is received; and
                    (B) searchable by manufacturer name, vehicle or 
                equipment make and model name, model year, system or 
                component, and the type of inspection or investigation 
                being conducted.
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