[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 17]
[House]
[Pages 24953-24954]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



          CONGRESS MUST NOT ROLL BACK TRUCK INSPECTION SAFETY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 19, 1999, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WOLF. Madam Speaker, today I stand up for the 5,374 families who 
have lost loved ones in truck accidents last year, and to note that the 
Congress could be about ready to walk away from them. If we take a look 
at this photo, it is a photo of an accident involving a truck whereby 
individuals were seriously injured and perhaps killed.
  This House voted overwhelmingly for the Transportation Appropriations 
Conference Report, which included a provision requiring change in the 
way the Federal Government conducts oversight of the trucking industry.
  Each year, more and more commercial motor vehicles are driving more 
and more miles and more people are dying. Currently, these vehicles are 
involved in 13 percent of all traffic fatalities, even though they 
represent only 3 percent of all registered vehicles in the Nation. 
Whether one is concerned about this issue or not, I would hope that 
Congress would direct itself to what activity it may very well be 
unknowingly doing later on this afternoon.
  Madam Speaker, 20 percent of the trucks on our roadways today, one in 
five are so unsafe that if they were stopped and inspected, they would 
be taken off the road. This problem is equally more serious at our 
southern borders where, on an average, 44 percent of these trucks are 
placed out of service. The Department of Transportation's IG has raised 
serious concerns about the vigor of our Nation's truck safety program. 
In the past 8 months, he has testified about the poor job that the 
Office of Motor Carriers has done to oversee truck safety. The Office 
of Motor Carriers is charged with monitoring and enforcing, and they 
are not doing a very good job at all.
  The Federal Highway Administration, which controls the Office of 
Motor Carriers, has not been effective in inducing prompt and sustained 
compliance. Seventy-five percent of the carriers sampled did not 
sustain a satisfactory rating, and after a series of compliance 
reviews, 54 percent have been taken out of service.
  I have now been out on three or four truck inspections in the last 
several months. More than one out of five, sometimes three out of 10 
are so unsafe, bad brakes, rusted out, baloney skin tires and many 
other problems. The compliance reviews are down, meaning the Office of 
Motor Carriers used to do five compliance reviews per employee per 
month. Now it has gone down to one. They are trying to get it back up 
to two. When the IG testified

[[Page 24954]]

at our hearings, he talked about one trucker who had driven from the 
West Coast to the State of Virginia in 48 hours, 48 hours, and in the 
cab there were jars of urine where he did not even stop to go to the 
bathroom. You wonder why we have such a miserable record, why so many 
people are dying.
  And then, in three short months, under NAFTA, trucks are going to be 
able to cross the border in Mexico and come into the United States. All 
of these trucks will be able to go into all of the States in our 
country, and the IG found recently that Mexico has no hours-of-service 
requirements, no logbooks are required for truckers, no vehicle 
maintenance standards, no roadside inspections, no safety rating. When 
the IG conducted a survey of the effects of NAFTA, he found 44 percent 
of the trucks were in such poor condition that they were taken off the 
road immediately. So we can see if these trucks now are permitted to 
come across the border from Mexico in addition to the unsafe program 
that we now have.
  Because of these findings, the Department of Transportation's IG has 
said we should move the Office of Motor Carriers, and the National 
Transportation Safety Board, and many, many others agree.
  Today, there may be a vote on the floor under the suspensions 
calendar that will roll back the efforts that have been made with 
regard to truck safety. So on behalf of the 5,374 people and their 
families who have died in truck related deaths, I would hope that 
Congress would not roll it back. The question is, who controls this 
place? Will it be the special interests, or will it be the American 
interests? The Congress took the action it did in the conference report 
to advance safety. Hopefully, the Congress will not roll it back.
  Madam Speaker, I ask people to focus, Members back in their offices, 
look at this and other pictures that I will bring up today to see if we 
really want to roll back truck inspection safety. I hope not.

                          ____________________