Authors: Testimony of Kenneth M. Mead before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Transportation and Hazardous Materials, Committee on Energy and Commerce

Date of Publication:  April 11, 1991

Sponsoring Agency:  U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO)

Performing Organization:  U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO)

Report No: GAO/T-RCED-91-32

Abstract:

As the Subcommittee begins deliberations on reauthorizing rail safety legislation, we appreciate the opportunity to discuss the work that we have conducted on this issue primarily for the House Committee on Energy and Commerce over the last 2 years.  In summary, our work shows that:

• Over the past 5 years, FRA has found the same types of defects recurring each year at the same railroads.  These recurring problems show that FRA's enforcement program is not effective in ensuring that railroads comply with federal safety regulations.  In addition, FRA does not impose and settle civil penalties in a timely manner.  At the end of 1989, FRA took about 36 months to settle civil penalties - 16 months longer than in 1982 when we first examined the issue.  One reason for the lengthy process is that FRA had a backlog of about 18,000 violations awaiting legal review.  According to the Administrator, FRA reduced this backlog to about 9,500 violations by the end of 1990.
• The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) did not - and still does not - have standards defining the frequency of railroad inspections or the size of the territory an inspector could cover.  Without such standards, railroads go uninspected, and FRA does not know whether the size of its inspection staff is adequate.  Also, the inspectors did not uniformly apply safety regulations throughout the industry.  As a result, inspectors in some FRA regions often cited serious safety problems as violations while inspectors in other regions rarely cited violations for the same safety problem.  In addition, FRA has no system to track corrective actions taken by railroads.
• Hazardous materials inspectors generally did not target high-risk shippers and railroads for inspections and did not evaluate the effectiveness of shippers and railroads' safety procedures.  These problems occurred because FRA had not provided adequate guidance to the inspectors and did not have enough inspectors to carry out its programs.  We found that complete information on the identity of hazardous materials shippers was not available.  Recently, the Hazardous Materials Transportation Uniform Safety Act of 1990 established a mandatory shipper registration program that will give FRA more complete shipper information.

No. of Pages:  17