Bill Includes Budget Increases For Three Years, New Staff

The House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure approved and ordered reported out the reauthorization bill for the NTSB on Wednesday. The Committee also marked up and approved its Budget Views and Estimates for Fiscal Year 2011.

H.R. 4714 reauthorizes NTSB and provides increased funding over the next four years: $117.4 million in Fiscal Year 2011, $120.258 million in FY 2012, $122.2 million in FY 2013, and $124.2 million in FY 2014. This funding level would allow the board to hire an additional 66 full-time equivalent positions, increasing its staffing to 477 FTEs. This number represents the Safety Board’s optimal staffing level and would enable the agency to take on more investigations and accomplish detailed examinations of transportation safety issues.

“NTSB is widely acknowledged as the world’s premier accident investigation agency. Thanks to the NTSB’s diligent work in investigating the causes of past transportation accidents, and in recommending solutions, the traveling public is safer today than ever before,” said Committee Chairman James L. Oberstar (D-MN). “But we must not be content with the progress we have made in improving transportation safety. That is why H.R. 4714, the ‘National Transportation Safety Board Reauthorization Act of 2010’, provides the Safety Board with additional tools it needs to accomplish its crucial mission. To maintain its position as the world’s preeminent investigative agency, NTSB must have the resources necessary to handle increasingly complex accident investigations.”

H.R. 4714 contains an explicit authorization for the NTSB to investigate incidents as well as accidents. The bill also clarifies that NTSB is not required to determine a single cause or probable cause of a transportation accident, but may determine that there was more than one probable cause.

The bill requires the Safety Board to develop a list of criteria that it will use to determine whether to hold a public hearing in any particular investigation, and permits NTSB to delegate its full authority to investigate major marine casualties to the Coast Guard if the NTSB determines that Coast Guard personnel assigned to investigate marine casualties possess the training, experience, and qualifications necessary to employ best practices in use by marine casualty investigators. In addition, the bill ensures coordination and cooperation between NTSB and the Coast Guard in investigations of major marine casualties.

H.R. 4714 also permits the NTSB, in coordination with the State Department, to investigate transportation accidents overseas, and to use appropriated funds for that purpose. And, with commercial space travel on the horizon, H.R. 4714 gives the Safety Board authority to investigate commercial space launch accidents.

The mark-up also adopted an amendment that provides NTSB with the explicit authority to issue interim recommendations whenever its investigations uncover urgent safety issues that require immediate action. A companion bill is pending in the U.S. Senate.

FMI: http://transportation.house.gov