Retiring of Ntsb's ``Most Wanted List'' of Transportation Safety Improvements

Floor Speech

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Ms. HOYLE of Oregon. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to mark the retirement of the National Transportation Safety Board's (NTSB's) ``Most Wanted List'' of Transportation Safety Improvements.

Many of us have interacted with the NTSB in our own communities in the wake of transportation tragedies and know they are well-regarded for their world-class crash and accident investigations.

Since 1990, the Most Wanted List has put a focus on needed transportation safety improvements across all modes of transportation, impacting communities across the country. It was introduced as a communications tool--before today's 24-hour news cycle and relentless social media--helping the NTSB focus its advocacy messages to policymakers. In its time, it was phenomenally effective.

Since the creation of the List in 1990, the NTSB successfully promoted and saw significant policy changes that led to several transportation safety wins, including:

Positive Train Control: legislation requiring full implementation of PTC on tracks with regularly scheduled intercity or commuter passenger rail service and Class I railroad main lines carrying poison- or toxic- by-inhalation hazardous materials.

Fuel Tank Safety: implementation of safety recommendations on fuel tank inerting systems and enactment of a related FAA final rule.

Occupant Protection:

Child passenger safety laws requiring booster seat use and requiring that children ride, properly restrained by a child car seat or seat belt, in the back seat.

Crashworthiness improvements across all modes, including the adoption of crash-resistant fuel tanks in helicopters.

Seat belt laws--requiring that all occupants in all vehicles equipped with safety belts use them.

Recreational Boating: implementation of alcohol-impaired boating laws, requirements for personal flotation devices, and requirements for boater education.

Additional areas of safety improvement that the Most Wanted List addressed include human fatigue, runway safety, alcohol and drug impairment, the shipment of hazardous materials, rail tank car safety, as well as pipeline leak detection and mitigation.

I also want to take a moment to acknowledge the agency's thorough and professional investigations that have led to safety recommendations which prevented future tragedies.

America's transportation industry is among the safest in the world, and the NTSB is its conscience. But unlike Congress, the agency can only recommend, not require or implement these changes. For almost 35 years, the ``Most Wanted List'' focused the agency's advocacy efforts that led to the enactment of new safety policies.

The NTSB feels now is the moment to change with the times. Its Board is calling for a more nimble safety advocacy program, freed from the structure of a formal list.

As they embark on that change, I want to join the Board and the agency in celebrating the legacy of the ``Most Wanted List'' on the occasion of its retirement. It has served the nation well, and it has helped save many American lives.

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