Recommendation: To improve the awareness of how risk-significant radioactive sources are transported within the United States and to better determine whether Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is meeting its goal of providing reasonable assurance for preventing the theft or diversion of these dangerous materials, the Chairman of NRC should take actions to collect information from licensees on the number of shipments and mode of transport for such sources--for example, by identifying the extent to which an existing NRC database (e.g., the National Source Tracking System) may be used to capture this information.

Agency: Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Status: Open

Comments: In its February 26, 2018 report to Congress on actions NRC has taken in response to GAO recommendations, NRC continued to disagree with the recommendation to expand its existing data collection requirements or to transition such information from its existing NRC databases to the NSTS. NRC stated that, as required by 10 CFR Part 37, "Physical Protection of Category 1 and Category 2 Quantities of Radioactive Material," the NRC currently collects the number of shipments and mode of transport for domestic transfers, and the import and export of Category 1 quantities of radioactive material. Additionally, under the provisions of 10 CFR Part 110, "Export and Import of Nuclear Material," the NRC stated that it collects the number of shipments and mode of transport for the import and export of shipments containing Category 2 or higher quantities of radioactive material. The NRC stated that it is the agency's position that the current information collected provides the NRC with an understanding of the potential modes of transport for Category 1 and 2 quantities of radioactive material and existing regulatory requirements provide robust protection for all such modes. The NRC stated that it does not consider the proposed additional information collection activity to be of sufficient safety or security benefit to justify the associated regulatory actions it would require. In August 2019, and again in August 2020, the NRC reaffirmed its disagreement with this recommendation and that it did not intend to take action to implement it. Despite its disagreement with this recommendation, we will continue to monitor whether NRC takes any actions that would result in addressing the concern GAO raised.

Recommendation: To improve the CSA program, the Secretary of Transportation should direct the FMCSA Administrator to revise the SMS methodology to better account for limitations in drawing comparisons of safety performance information across carriers; in doing so, the Secretary of Transportation should direct the FMCSA Administrator to conduct a formal analysis that specifically identifies: (1) limitations in the data used to calculate SMS scores including variability in the carrier population and the quality and quantity of data available for carrier safety performance assessments, and (2) limitations in the resulting SMS scores including their precision, confidence, and reliability for the purposes for which they are used.

Agency: Department of Transportation
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: FMCSA did not agree with our recommendation, disputing the methodology and conclusions in our report. However, we continue to believe that addressing Safety Measurement System (SMS) methodology limitations has merit and could help the agency better target FMCSA's resources to the carriers that pose the highest risk of crashing. For example, we found FMCSA requires a minimum level of information for a carrier to receive an SMS score; however, this requirement is not strong enough to produce sufficiently reliable scores. As a result, FMCSA identified many carriers as high risk that were not later involved in a crash, potentially causing FMCSA to miss opportunities to intervene with higher risk carriers. To fully implement this recommendation, FMCSA should revise SMS methodology to account for data limitations that limit comparisons so that the FMCSA is better positioned to identify and mitigate carriers that pose the greatest safety risks. FMCSA has recently developed and tested a new methodological approach that could potentially account for the limitations we identified. While FMCSA has not yet committed to deploying the new methodology, they hope to do so some time in 2020.

Recommendation: To improve the CSA program, the Secretary of Transportation should direct the FMCSA Administrator to ensure that any determination of a carrier's fitness to operate properly accounts for limitations we have identified regarding safety performance information.

Agency: Department of Transportation
Status: Open

Comments: The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) agreed with the basic principles that GAO addressed in this area, but disagreed with GAO's characterization of FMCSA's proposed Safety Fitness Determination (SFD) rule. In January 2016, FMCSA issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM), which proposed a revised methodology for issuance of a safety fitness determination for motor carriers. Specifically, the new methodology would have determined when a motor carrier is not fit to operate commercial motor vehicles in or affecting interstate commerce based on the carrier's on-road safety data; an investigation; or a combination of both. However, in July 2018, in part due to a review of SMS by the National Academies of Science congressionally mandated evaluation of SMS, FMCSA announced that the enhancements previously proposed will not be completed.

Recommendation: To ensure that up-to-date data are available on the road damages imposed by all vehicles types compared with the revenues each contributes to the Highway Trust Fund, the Secretary of Transportation should direct the FHWA Administrator to revise and publish the agency's Highway Cost Allocation Study and update it periodically as warranted.

Agency: Department of Transportation
Status: Open

Comments: As of April 2020, FHWA stated it does not plan to revise and publish the agency's Highway Cost Allocation Study because of the cost of doing so and the uncertainty about whether and how it would be used. GAO continues to believe that up to date information on the cost of road damage imposed by all vehicle types compared with the revenues contributed by those vehicles to the Highway Trust Fund is needed to help determine whether user fees are sufficient to cover damage costs. Moreover, Congress and the administration need to agree on a long-term sustainable plan for balancing spending from and revenues to the Highway Trust Fund and, for this reason, funding surface transportation is on GAO's High Risk List. GAO will continue to monitor any efforts by DOT and FHWA to respond to our recommendation.