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The New York Times reports that a recent Bush directive gives the president “much greater control over the rules and policy statements that the government develops to protect public health, safety, the environment, civil rights and privacy,” by requiring that each agency “have a regulatory policy office run by a political appointee, to supervise the development of rules and documents providing guidance to regulated industries.”

The White House “will thus have a gatekeeper in each agency to analyze the costs and the benefits of new rules and to make sure the agencies carry out the president’s priorities,” the paper said. “This strengthens the hand of the White House in shaping rules that have, in the past, often been generated by civil servants and scientific experts. It suggests that the administration still has ways to exert its power after the takeover of Congress by the Democrats.”

According to the paper, the Bush directive “says that, in deciding whether to issue regulations, federal agencies must identify ‘the specific market failure’ or problem that justifies government intervention.”

Meanwhile, the Times article said, a battle is brewing over the nomination of Susan E. Dudley to be administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget. (See September, 2006 Current Development Archive.) The nomination was stalled in the last Congress, then resubmitted in January 2007. It faces strong opposition from safety and consumer groups, but the president could appoint her to an interim term when the Senate next recesses.

Some of Ms. Dudley’s views are reflected in the executive order, the newspaper noted. In a primer on regulation written in 2005, while she was at the Mercatus Center of George Mason University in Northern Virginia, Ms. Dudley said that government regulation was generally not warranted “in the absence of a significant market failure.”

Finally, another Bush nomination, this one to the chairmanship of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, has drawn “vehement opposition” from consumer groups and Democrats, the Consumer Affairs website reports. Michael E. Baroody is the executive vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). “NAM is one of the nation's largest trade groups and it opposes aggressive product safety regulation,” the website noted. “Ann Brown, the CPSC's chairman from 1994-2001, laughed in shock when ConsumerAffairs.Com informed her in an interview that Bush was expected to nominate a NAM executive.”

"I intend to give his nomination thorough scrutiny," Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), a Commerce Committee member, said in a statement. "Here was a golden opportunity to put a true champion of consumers onto a very important commission, and instead President Bush selected someone who represents the special interests…This administration seems incapable of doing anything in the public interest."

Baroody has a long history of Republican ties and anti-consumer regulation, the website noted. In a feature article, the Los Angeles Times described his extensive anti-regulatory and pro-business activities over the past decades. It also noted that because CPSC has been without a chairman for many months, it is no longer empowered to take formal actions on consumer product issues.

Even before the hearing a leading newspaper had criticized the plan for failures. In an editorial, the New York Times called the effort “long overdue but still likely to fall short of what’s needed. In far too many cases, the tests are weaker than they should be and fail to address current kinds of accidents, like what happens when one of today’s larger vehicles collides with a smaller one.” Among other failings, the Times editorial said, “the tests have not kept pace with the times as more sport utility vehicles, minivans and pickups have taken to the roads… For everyone’s safety, consumer advocates and vehicle insurers should press hard for the strongest possible tests and standards.”

At the hearing, leading consumer advocacy groups strongly urged NHTSA to considerably toughen the NCAP program. In an extensive article about the hearing, the Detroit News said that automakers supported an approach which would replace the present system – five star rankings in three vehicle safety categories – with a single ranking. But the president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which conducts its own crash test and rating program “offered harsh criticism of NHTSA's proposal, calling it ‘timid.’

“He noted that as far back as 1994, NHTSA had held a public hearing about reforming its new car assessment program and had done little. He also said NHTSA has been delinquent in doing research, noting that it still isn't considering roof strength in assessing new cars.” He also said NHTSA “should not focus all of its efforts on crash-avoidance technologies -- like electronic stability control -- at the expense of insuring that vehicles were crash-worthy; that in the event of the crash, safety systems will protect them.”

A major problem with the program is that nearly all vehicles pass current tests, the Detroit News pointed out. “Eight-seven percent of 2006 vehicles received four or five stars (out of five possible) for side impact crashes, and 95 percent earned top marks for frontal crashes.”

Along with IIHS, Public Citizen was critical of the NHTSA approach for its weaknesses. In her testimony at the hearing, the group’s president praised NHTSA’s intent and the NCAP program in general, but added:

That “the agency has omitted many critical issues necessary for NCAP to be adequately updated. These critical issues include rating vehicles for rear occupant protection, improving the current test used for rating rollover protection, adding an aggressivity rating system, rating child safety restraints, creating a pedestrian rating, rating vehicle performance in rear-impact crashes, and adding an offset frontal crash test rating. I also urge the agency to test and rate both front and rear occupant seating positions in a vehicle through NCAP, which would provide consumers with critical information about vehicle safety that is currently not available. Furthermore, the agency should reform its scoring system from stars to letter grades to assist in consumer understanding of the rating system.”

The Center for Auto Safety responded to the NHTSA approach by calling not only for a tougher ratings system but also for a substantially broadened, more comprehensive consumer information program. Among other things, it criticized the agency’s current failure to post on its website Technical Service Bulletins and Service Campaigns which car companies issue to dealers for correction of vehicle flaws, its failure to require that new cars be labeled at point of sale with data about their safety performance, and its lack of a consumer information test and rating for vehicle roof crush in rollovers, and its failure to dependability make available information about its potential defect investigations on its website.

“If NHTSA wants to expand its consumer information program to adequately cover Defect Investigations which result in recalls or which are closed because the manufacturer has issued a TSB or a Service Campaign, then the agency must publish TSBs and Service Campaign on its website arranged by make and model exactly in the same make and model terminology as used in the NCAP crash ratings,” it said.

According to the newspaper, “more robust opposition to the government's update of the 30-year-old standard has crystallized over several months…” It notes that rollovers “account for roughly 10,000 fatalities annually or a quarter of all U S traffic deaths, federal safety figures show. About 600 deaths and 800 injuries are caused by head contact with a collapsed roof in a rollover.”

It documents the experience of a highway safety researcher who discovered a few years ago that federal regulators were collecting the global coordinates of fatal accidents, linking them to its FARS database, and publishing them on its website. “He downloaded the data to his computer, but a few days later it was gone from the website. He called the agency and explained that the data had disappeared and he would like the agency to repost it. Officials called the posting a mistake and said he should erase it from his own computer, he recalled.”

Eventually he filed a FOIA request with the agency. Its rejection said that "the disclosure would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy." “Exactly how a set of coordinates would invade a dead person's privacy was not made clear. Police routinely release the names of fatal-accident victims,” the newspaper noted.

“The FARS database already contains the highway number and mileage marker of fatal accidents, but having the exact Earth coordinates allows the data to be analyzed more systematically,” it also noted. It added that the issue is similar to the battle presently going on over the NHTSA’s refusal to release some vehicle safety information it obtains under the TREAD Act. (For earlier coverage, see the August, 2006 Current Development Archive.)

The group said, “The fuel economy program continues to be grossly underfunded at about $1.2 trillion a year… the Bush administration proposals also cut back on safety. The DOT budget requests $1.2 million less in funding for the safety performance rulemaking budget, taking it from $14 million to just $12.8 million for 2008. These funds pay for a variety of programs, including the federal motor vehicle safety standard rulemakings, the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) and fuel economy…

“The cuts in the safety budget would undermine safety standards and consumers' right to know about safety performance… It is not possible for NHTSA to effectively conduct this [NCAP] research on a diminished budget. Furthermore, the budget also covers motor vehicle safety standard rulemakings, including the requirement for NHTSA to issue important new and updated crashworthiness safety standards included in the 2005 Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act - A Legacy for Users, which cannot be completed in any effective way with this insufficient budget. Given that there were 10,800 rollover fatalities in 2005, rulemakings regarding occupant protection in rollover crashes are vitally important for improving highway safety. The new law commands these rulemakings, but this budget undercuts the intent of the law.”

To qualify for TOP SAFETY PICK, vehicles must earn the highest rating of good in all three Institute tests (front, side, and rear) and be equipped with electronic stability control (ESC). This is a standard feature on both the Edge and the MKX. Award criteria were tightened for 2007 to include ESC because research shows it can prevent many single-vehicle crashes and rollovers.

“The new requirement will save seven lives annually and four injuries will be reduced in severity as a result of remaining inside the vehicle, NHTSA estimates. Most at risk are children, it said. “Children sit in the back of vehicles in disproportionately high numbers," NHTSA's rule said. The final rule, NHTSA said, "essentially requires sliding doors to have two latches."

“The price tag for the Iraq War is now estimated at $700 billion in direct costs and perhaps twice that much when indirect expenditures are included… One last and rather tiny governmental monetary unit functions almost as spare change and has the ungainly acronym NHTSA. It stands for the annual budget of the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, which is approximately $670 million, or about two-thirds of $1 billion. The Iraq War has cost about 1,500 NHTSA's, several of which could probably have reduced the more than 40,000 Americans killed annually on our roads.”

The newspaper analyzed data submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In Illinois, the number of fatalities has dropped every year since the state passed a law in 2003 that allows police to make stops for failing to wear a seat belt. Last year, there were fewer than 1,300 deaths, the lowest number since 1924. In Ohio, fatalities dropped 6.6 percent between 2005 and 2006, making 2006 the safest year ever. State Police Lt. Tony Bradshaw said that troopers have been targeting high accident areas.”

“Traffic safety advocates call it a huge problem that the entire country faces as motorcycle ownership surges,” the Star said in its detailed report. Lack of helmet use by some cyclists appears to be part of the problem, and use of “novelty” helmets reportedly is another. A Missouri task force assigned to look at the problem “wants to crack down on riders who wear so-called novelty helmets that look flashy but might not protect your head,” the paper said. It added: “Many say the growing number of deaths seems to correspond with the increasing popularity of motorcycles, spurred by baby boomers getting back on the bike. About 147,000 motorcycles were registered in Kansas and Missouri in 2005, up about a third since 2000. At the same time, motorcycle deaths in the two states have climbed about 80 percent.

Meanwhile, Consumer Affairs reported that the DOT secretary wants to make safety helmets standard equipment for motorcyclists. She is “is calling on manufacturers to provide free or heavily discounted DOT-certified helmets or driver safety training with the purchase of every new motorcycle sold in the United States,” it said.

Meanwhile, NHTSA reportedly is moving forward to get a grip on child restraint use and design problems. According to the Detroit Free Press, the agency pledged at a recent child-restraint conference to reduce “the confusion surrounding child car seats, saying the current mélange of seat designs and markings in vehicles was leaving parents confused and children at risk.” (See Current Development Archive for December, 2006.)

According to the Detroit News in an article on the subject, new NHTSA regs on car seats for children are to be “issued by end of the year… NHTSA chief Nicole Nason told reporters her office planned to update the federal regulations governing auto safety seats and the system in automobiles for securing them without using safety belts. ‘It's not an easy solution," Nason said. "We want to make children as safe as possible, give parents the best information and make the technology available to protect children in vehicles.’”

NHTSA, the report notes, “has no standards or guidelines on the safety of repairing alloy wheels. As in so many other critical areas of car safety, the agency has not provided advice to consumers on any aftermarket products or issues… the matter is largely left to industry self-regulation and the decisions of companies about what they will repair or not.” It described an incident in which a wheel expert “was recently called in to investigate an alloy wheel failure after it had been repaired. Fortunately, the vehicle was parked in the driveway when the repaired section gave way and the alloy wheel crumbled apart. Had the vehicle been on the freeway, failure likely would have caused a sudden and drastic loss of vehicle control,” the expert said.

In an apparently unrelated story headlined “Demonic Concept,” Automotive News reported: “The Chrysler group will show the rear-wheel-drive Dodge Demon concept - which it describes as a compact, affordable ‘roadster with an attitude’ - at the Geneva auto show next month. The Demon features Dodge's signature cross-hair grille, 19-inch brushed aluminum wheels and long seat tracks that free up storage behind the seats.”

The newly tested models earning five stars include a seven of four-door passenger vehicles: Dodge Caliber; Ford Five Hundred; Kia Optima; Mercury Montego; Subaru Legacy; Saturn Aura; and the Toyota Camry. In addition, 17 four-door SUV’s earned a five star crash test rating for all seating positions: Acura MDX; Acura RDX; Audi Q7; Dodge Nitro; Ford Freestyle; GMC Acadia; Honda CR-V; Honda Element; Hyundai Santa Fe; Infiniti FX35/45; Jeep Grand Cherokee; Kia Sorento; Kia Sportage; Mazda CX-7; Saturn Outlook; Subaru Outback; and the Toyota Highlander.

Thus far, the agency said, it has completed frontal, side, and rollover ratings for 63 of the 70 vehicles scheduled to be tested for the 2007 model year, representing approximately 79 percent of the 2007 model year fleet. “Of all newly tested vehicles, only the Mazda6 four-door, Pontiac Solstice convertible and its twin, the Saturn Sky Convertible, earned five stars for rollover resistance — but none of these models also attained five star crash test safety for all seating positions. Of the 24 earning five star crash test safety for front and side impact, none earned five stars for rollover resistance.”

The Detroit News, reporting on the NHTSA results, noted that although the ratings are frequently cited in automaker advertising, “the government's watchdog group [GAO] and others have said the ‘star system’ needs to be improved because most vehicles receive four or five stars under NHTSA's system. The grade inflation makes it more difficult for consumers to compare the safety value of similar vehicles.” (See related story in this issue.)