Safety rules pushed aside under Trump
WASHINGTON >> President Donald Trump is putting the brakes on attempts to address dangerous safety problems from speeding tractor-trailers to sleepy railroad engineers as part of his quest to roll back regulations across the government, according to a review by The Associated Press of Transportation Department rule-making activities.
A dozen transportation safety rules under development or already adopted have been repealed, withdrawn, delayed, or put on the back burner since Trump took office last year. There have been no significant new safety rules approved during that time.
The sidelined rules would have, among other things, required states to conduct annual inspections of commercial bus operators, railroads to operate trains with at least two crew members and automakers to equip future cars and light trucks with vehicle-to-vehicle communications to prevent collisions.
In most cases, the rules are opposed by powerful industries. The political appointees running the agencies that write the rules often come from the industries they regulate.
Many of the rules were prompted by tragic events.
“These rules have been written in blood,” said John Risch, the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers’ legislative director. “But we’re in a new era now of little-to-no new regulations no matter how beneficial they might be.”
Trump has sought to eliminate regulations throughout the government, viewing them as unnecessary restraints on economic growth. He has ordered that two regulations be identified for elimination for every significant new one issued.
DOT says it can reduce regulations without undermining safety and questions the effectiveness of some proposed regulations. It declined repeated AP requests since November for an on-the-record interview with a top official to discuss safety regulations. Instead, the department provided a brief statement from James Owens, DOT’s deputy general counsel, saying that new administrations typically take a “fresh look” at regulations, including those that are the most costly.
“We will not finalize a rule simply because it has advanced through preliminary steps,” Owens said. “Even if a rule is ‘one step away,’ if that rule is not justifiable because it harms safety and imposes unnecessarily high economic costs, for example, that rule will not advance.”
One rule, proposed by DOT in 2016, would require new heavy trucks to have software that electronically limits their speeds. The government didn’t designate a top speed but said it had studied 60, 65 and 68 mph.
The White House moved the proposal from its list of active rulemakings to its long-term agenda after Trump took office. DOT says the rule isn’t dead, but the department has limited resources and higher priorities.
The rule would save as many as 498 lives per year and produce a net cost savings to society of $475 million to nearly $5 billion annually depending on the top speed the government picked, DOT estimated two years ago.