dangerous articles; investigating serious accidents; inspecting carrier equipment, operations, and records; requiring carriers to file reports; and enforcement of the above requirements. Other significant assets: None. Executive and special positions authorized Dec. 31, 1965 : GS-17-- GS-16_ (K) CORPS OF ENGINEERS (CERTAIN FUNCTIONS) Mission and program Corps of Engineers functions to be transferred to the Department of Transportation are these: (a) Designation of certain areas as anchorages; (b) Establishment of regulations regarding drawbridge operations; (c) Determination of whether existing bridges are unreasonably obstructive to navigation and Government participation in the cost of necessary alterations; (d) Review of bridge tolls to determine reasonableness if controversy arises; (e) Policing of oil and chemical pollution; and (f) Determination of proper vertical and horizontal bridge clearances over waterways. Funding: Fiscal year 1966: NOA. Fiscal year 1967: NOA_ $500,000 500,000 NOTE. These are estimated amounts of a larger dollar amount used for the corps total purposes. These amounts can and do vary substantially among years; e.g., about 50 percent of the half million concerns alteration of obstructive bridges-this item alone could jump to several million for a given year. Personnel: Actual employment Dec. 31, 1965---. Fiscal year 1966: Full-time permanent_ 151 151 151 1 These are estimates of equivalent totals, because they represent parts of jobs of many people scattered throughout the organization. Other significant assets: None. Executive and special positions: None. 10. REASONS FOR BRINGING TOGETHER IN DOT ALL SAFETY FUNCTIONS IN TRANSPORTATION Safety is an operational responsibility and therefore one of the primary functions that must concern an executive Department of Transportation. Coordination of transportation systems and problems would be incomplete without inclusion of an operational aspect as important as safety. To do the job effectively, the Department's information and views on safety must be as complete and comprehensive as possible. One of the major tools that makes this possible is the investigation of all types of transportation accidents and safety problems. The Department must be completely equipped to find out what is involved and what has happened when accidents occur. Accidents in various forms of transportation have many common elements. Since transportation involves motion and the movement of people in vehicles of different types, many accidents vary in accordance with degree of impact and other deceleration forces involved. Similarly, the construction of vehicles, the type of materials used, as well as structural techniques, and the nature of effective restraining devices, both for the vehicle and the passenger, relate directly to the nature of injuries and the possibility of preventing injuries. Other common elements of transportation systems include navigation facilities, and their effectiveness and their responsiveness. These few examples illustrate that many common elements exist among many modes of transportation. A common effort to identify them and their bearing on safety in all modes of transportation, as well as their utility for such purposes, will spread the benefits of improved safety practices much more rapidly than would otherwise be possible. It should also be possible as a result of a single department to consolidate research into the many common facets of accidents, not only those involving structures and materials, but particularly those involving the human factor and the strain on the human body in conditions of stress and danger. Additionally, since so many common elements are involved, there will be a greater opportunity to improve investigative techniques and procedures by applying the lessons learned in one mode to problems in another. These benefits will be more readily realizable and coordinated more effectively if all of the investigations are conducted under unified direction of a single Department. The same beneficial results follow when the circumstances involved in all accidents are reviewed by a single safety board whenever such investigation is necessary. The assignment of responsibility for determining the cause of all accidents to a National Transportation Safety Board would create finally in the history of government a single body concerned exclusively with safety matters. This is not to suggest that safety does not today receive the attention it requires, but there can be no denying the fact that it is conducted by officials who have other and sometimes more important functions, such as those in the CAB and the ICC which relate to economic regulation. Safety no longer can be incidental to other work. The toll of human lives and the economic consequences of accidents are so great that the Government must recognize its responsibility to provide this area the attention it deserves, in the hope of eliminating some of the human tragedy and economic waste. By creating the NTSB, the Government will concentrate attention. on safety in a body to which no other functions will be assigned. It will also develop a much higher degree of expertise, if only by freeing those involved in safety from the responsibility of discharging other functions that demand their time and attention. The determination of cause in today's highly technological environment frequently calls for patient technical exploration and deep technical expertise. It normally calls for painstaking inquiry and to accomplish this purpose effectively it should be free from distracting, partisan or proprietary influences that are often present when cause must be determined by the same body that is responsible for operations, rulemaking, surveillance, or investigation. The Board would provide operational efficiency; it would also give effect to the doctrine of separation of functions by separating the judgment of cause from the investigation of the events leading up to accidents. It follows from the requirement that safety functions be vested in the Department of Transportation that they all be included. The benefits in such a combination cannot be realized otherwise. No particular gain will follow from leaving one mode of transportation to supervision by other agencies of the Government. To do so would be to destroy the very possibility of benefits in improvement and coordination that the Department is being organized to achieve. 11. SAFETY FUNCTIONS TRANSFERRED TO DOT AND ROLE OF THE TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD The Department of Transportation Act transfers to the Secretary all safety functions, powers, and duties now vested in the Civil Aeronautics Board, Federal Aviation Agency, the Coast Guard, and the Interstate Commerce Commission. These functions include: Civil Aeronautics Board.-Investigating aircraft accidents; determining probable cause thereof; making recommendations to prevent similar accidents; issuing rules governing accident notification; and reviewing orders involving the suspension, alteration, modification, revocation, or denial of certificates. Federal Aviation Agency.-Promulgating and enforcing air traffic rules and other aviation safety regulations, such as examination, inspection, certification, and rating of airmen, aircraft, air carriers, and air agencies; research and development of systems for safe and efficient navigation of aircraft in the airspace, and developmental work tending to the creation of improved aircraft; establishing, maintaining, and operating a common system of air navigation and control for civil and military aircraft; registration of aircraft; and recording aircraft documents. Coast Guard.-Regulating merchant mariners, including licensing and discipline; inspecting vessels, from reviewing plans through construction and operation; providing aids to navigation; search and rescue operations; and ice breaking services. Interstate Commerce Commission.-Enforcing railroad safety laws relating to train equipment, safety and signal devices, train brakes, and hours of service of employees; and motor carrier safety laws relating to qualifications of drivers, parts and accessories necessary for safe operation, hours of service of drivers, inspection and maintenance of vehicles, and the transportation of migrant workers; administering and enforcing legislation governing the transportation of explosives and other dangerous articles by rail carriers, motor carriers, freight forwarders, and pipeline carries (except natural gas). Accident cause functions transferred from ICC, SAB, and Coast Guard to DOT and National Transportation Safety Board At the present time the Civil Aeronautics Board, the Interstate Commerce Commission, and the Coast Guard, among the other significant safety functions outlined above, conduct investigations of accidents in their respective transportation fields. While the investigative procedures differ in detail there are similarities in approach. (See table 1.) The bill provides for a National Transportation Safety Board which is vested with responsibility for determining the cause or probable cause of transportation accidents. The Board will operate with a limited advisory staff, and will make its determinations on the basis of an independent analysis of the results of on-the-spot investigations conducted by other elements of the new Department. The Board would occupy the same position in safety matters as does its corresponding element under present law. In the determination of cause of aviation accidents, a member of the Board will preside as chairman of the accident investigative hearings assisted by a panel which he will designate as is CAB practice today. In other modes, the NTSB might assign a member to participate in accident investigative hearings but would more probably continue present practice in the Coast Guard and the ICC and act on the record of hearings conducted by the agencies. The ultimate objective of the Board's functions is to translate the findings of accident causes into means for accident prevention. To help achieve this goal, the Board is authorized to make recommendations to the Secretary for the conduct of special safety studies pertaining to safety in transportation. Licensing appellate functions transferred from CAB and Coast Guard to National Transportation Safety Board The Civil Aeronautics Board's responsibility to review on appeal orders involving the suspension, alteration, modification, revocation, or denial of safety certificates issued by FAA, is transferred to the National Transportation Safety Board. Similar authority with respect to documents and licenses issued to mariners by the Coast Guard is also transferred to the National Transportation Safety Board. (See table 2.) |