Opinion ID: 186575
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Implementing ISTEA's Dictates

Text: 16
17 As a first step toward implementing § 4007(a) of ISTEA, FMCSA's predecessor, FHWA, issued an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking. Training for All Entry Level Drivers of Commercial Motor Vehicles (CMVs), 58 Fed.Reg. 33,874 (announced June 21, 1993) (to be codified at 49 C.F.R. pt. 383). Noting the requirements of § 4007(a), FHWA solicited comments on the need to require training of all entry level drivers of commercial motor vehicles (CMVs). Id. The agency further explained that it had contracted with an outside company to produce a study examining the effectiveness of private sector efforts to ensure adequate training of entry-level CMV drivers. Id. at 33,875. Information gleaned from this study would form the basis of the report to Congress mandated by ISTEA. To help assemble the necessary material, the agency invited interested parties to submit comments in response to a list of 13 questions addressing the state of entry-level driver training. Id. at 33,875-76. 18 In July 1995, after receiving over 100 responses to its request for comments, FHWA published its three-volume Adequacy Report, reprinted in J.A. 164. The Adequacy Report began by surveying the training levels among drivers of heavy trucks, motor coaches, and school buses. What it found was not encouraging: The conclusion of this study is that none of the three private sectors are effectively providing adequate training. 1 Adequacy Report at 2, J.A. 173. Specifically, the Adequacy Report found that the heavy truck sector has the smallest percentage of carriers offering adequate training (about 9 percent), while only 18.5 percent of motor coach carriers offered adequate training. Id. at 3-4, J.A. 174-75. The Report concluded that the present level of training adequacy is not likely to improve due to the actions of the private sectors themselves. Id. at 7, J.A. 178. Given widespread training failures across the industries it examined, the Report recommended that [i]f it is desirable to target fewer than all three domains, the heavy truck domain should be considered first priority, followed by motorcoaches. Id. at 12, J.A. 183. 19 The Adequacy Report also made extensive findings on the form that adequate entry-level training would take. With regard to heavy trucks, the Report stated, there is general agreement in the industry that the model tractor-trailer driver curriculum developed by the FHWA in the mid-1980s represents an adequate content and approach for training truck drivers. 3 Adequacy Report at 1-6, J.A. 209. Therefore, the model curriculum was the starting point in defining `adequate training' for heavy truck drivers. Id. Using the Model Curriculum as a baseline for analysis, the Report noted that [f]or a program to be considered `adequate' it must have on-street hours. Id. at B-5, J.A. 216. 20 The findings of the Adequacy Report were distilled into a Final Regulatory Evaluation, which FHWA transmitted to Congress in February 1996. The evaluation presented a cost-benefit analysis of mandating entry-level driver training in conformity with the Model Curriculum. On balance, the report found, mandatory training would be beneficial. In its analysis, the agency discounted the anomalous results produced by some earlier studies of driver training, which had suggested that training might increase accident rates. Such counterintuitive findings, the agency determined, likely reflected the pervasiveness of training programs that were not adequate. Final Regulatory Evaluation: Entry-Level Driver Training at 15-17 (May 1995), reprinted in J.A. 241-43. Adjusting for shoddy training programs made the benefits of good training clear. Based on the information presented from case studies, a reduction in accidents is possible when training is well designed. Accident reductions in the 10 to 15 percent range are not unrealistic. Id. at 20, J.A. 246. Economically, mandating training along the lines described in the Model Curriculum would yield substantial projected benefits. Against a cost of between $4.19 billion and $4.51 billion over 10 years, mandatory training was expected to generate a benefit in the range of $5.4 billion to $15.27 billion during the same period. Id. at 32-36, J.A. 258-62. 21 In April 1996, FHWA published a notice in which it solicited comments on the Adequacy Report and the Final Regulatory Evaluation. Training of Entry-Level Drivers of Commercial Motor Vehicles, 61 Fed.Reg. 18,355 (Apr. 25, 1996) (notice of availability and request for comments). In response, the agency received 48 additional comments. On November 13, 1996, the agency held a public meeting on the issue, which 26 individuals attended. After the meeting, however, the agency's activities pursuant to § 4007(a) came to a halt. Nothing in the record explains this hiatus, but for six years the agency initiated no further action. Indeed, it took litigation by concerned private parties to nudge the agency out of its slumber. In November 2002, those parties petitioned this court for a writ of mandamus ordering the Secretary of Transportation to fulfill his ISTEA duties. In re Citizens for Reliable & Safe Highways, No. 02-1363 (D.C.Cir.Nov. 26, 2002). The matter was settled, and DOT agreed to publish a final rule implementing entry-level training requirements no later than May 31, 2004. Id.
22 On August 15, 2003, FMCSA published a notice of proposed rulemaking. After recounting the findings of the Adequacy Report, FMCSA proposed a novel approach to the problem of CMV training: 23 The agency is not requiring entry-level drivers to receive training in areas that are covered in the CDL test. Such training would be redundant. Instead, the required training would address: (1) driver qualifications — medical, and drug and alcohol testing, (2) driver hours of service limitations, (3) driver wellness, and (4) whistle blower protection. 24 Minimum Training Requirements, 68 Fed.Reg. at 48,868. FMCSA estimated that training in this course of study would entail about 10.5 hours for heavy truck and motor coach drivers. Id. The proposed rule defined entry-level driver as one with less than two years experience. Id. at 48,869. Licensed drivers with one year of experience and a good driving record, however, would be grandfathered past the new standard. Id. Finally, the agency asserted that the proposed rule would be cost-justified, but it offered no studies directly demonstrating the rule's economic benefit. Instead, FMCSA relied on inferences from data related to more extensive training regimens. Estimating a 10-year cost of $173.3 million, the agency claimed that the proposed rule would have to prevent 315 truck-related accidents in the first year and 285 crashes in subsequent years to be cost-beneficial. Id. Since those numbers represented less than one percent of truck-related accidents, and the training program contemplated in the Adequacy Report was projected to cut accident rates by up to 15 percent, the agency concluded that the scaled-down reduction in accidents required to justify the rule's cost was attainable. Id. 25 After eliciting comments and holding a public meeting, FMCSA announced its final rule in May 2004. In the rule's summary, the agency stated: This action responds to a study mandated by the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 that found the private sector training of entry-level drivers in the heavy truck, motorcoach, and school bus industries was inadequate. Minimum Training Requirements, 69 Fed.Reg. at 29,384. The final rule mandates action in the four areas sketched in the notice of proposed rulemaking. 49 C.F.R. § 380.503. FMCSA did not set a minimum number of hours, but suggested that 10 hours of training would be appropriate for heavy truck drivers. 69 Fed.Reg. at 29,398. The new rule defined entry-level to cover all drivers with less than one year of experience driving with a CDL. 49 C.F.R. § 380.502(b). 26 In July 2004, petitioners, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety (Advocates) and the Owner-Operated Independent Drivers Association, filed separate petitions for review of FMCSA's final rule. Petitioner United Motorcoach Association (UMA) initially filed a petition for reconsideration with FMCSA. It then filed a petition for review with this court, which was dismissed as incurably premature since UMA had a petition for reconsideration pending before the agency. After notifying the agency that it was withdrawing its petition for reconsideration, UMA filed a new petition for review with this court in December 2004. All three petitions were consolidated for review. 27 In 1996, Congress passed an Act to codify without substantive change laws related to transportation and to improve the United States Code. Pub.L. No. 104-287, 110 Stat. 3388 (1996). Oddly, the Act seems to repeal § 4007(a). Id. § 7(8), 110 Stat. at 3400. Neither party mentions this Act, and it is hard to know what to make of it. The Act was passed in October 1996, approximately eight months after the FHWA fulfilled its mandate under § 4007(a)(1) by transmitting the Adequacy Report to Congress. Congress appears to have believed it was repealing only obsolete statutory language relating to the § 4007(a)(1) mandate. See H.R. REP. 104-573, 23, 1996 U.S.C.C.A.N. 3831, 3853 (Section 7(8) repeals section 4007(a), (c), (d), and (e) of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 ... to eliminate obsolete provisions.). However, beyond the obsolete requirements of § 4007(a)(1), the remainder of § 4007(a) unequivocally required the agency to take further action, either by issuing a rule on driver training or, if doing so would contravene the public interest, by submitting a further report to Congress. Id. § 4007(a)(2)-(3). Neither party suggests that Pub.L. No. 104-287 repealed the agency's obligations beyond those set forth in § 4007(a)(1). Indeed, both sides argued the case as if the disputed statutory provisions remain in full force and effect. 28 Whatever the status of § 4007(a) — and for purposes of this opinion, we share the parties' evident assumption that it remains operative — it seems clear that this court has authority to determine whether FMCSA's final rule is arbitrary and capricious under the APA, 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A). FMCSA, whose chief mission is to ensure highway safety, see 49 U.S.C. § 113(b) (2000), has the undisputed authority to promulgate regulations responding to the findings of the Adequacy Report, see id. § 113(f) (authorizing the Secretary of Transportation to delegate authority to FMCSA). That is precisely what the agency set out to do when it issued its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. See 68 Fed.Reg. at 48,863. And the parties do not doubt that the agency's final regulations are subject to judicial review under the APA. In other words, for purposes of judicial review, it does not matter whether FMCSA's final rule is viewed as an act taken pursuant to a specific duty under ISTEA or an act taken pursuant to the authority granted under the agency's organic statute to address matters relating to highway safety. In either case, FMCSA lawfully set out to promulgate regulations that respond to the Adequacy Report. That is the basis upon which we review the final rule to determine whether it survives judicial scrutiny under the APA's arbitrary-and-capricious standard of review.