{
  "id": "R44587",
  "type": "CRS Report",
  "typeId": "REPORTS",
  "number": "R44587",
  "active": true,
  "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
  "versions": [
    {
      "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
      "id": 454979,
      "date": "2016-08-10",
      "retrieved": "2016-09-09T18:42:55.026602",
      "title": "The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB): Background and Possible Issues for Reauthorization and Oversight",
      "summary": "The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is a small, independent federal agency with responsibility for investigating transportation accidents; conducting transportation safety studies; issuing safety recommendations; aiding victims\u2019 families after aviation and passenger rail disasters; and promoting transportation safety.\nThe NTSB makes safety recommendations to federal and state agencies, transportation providers, and manufacturers, which may or may not choose to implement them. In recent years, NTSB recommendations have helped build support for laws enacted to mandate positive train control systems, a safety technology now being installed on certain railroad lines; Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations to address airline pilot fatigue; state laws addressing distracted driving; federal safety standards for helicopter air ambulances; and crashworthiness standards for helicopter fuel systems, which are required under a new federal law.\nThe NTSB was last reauthorized in 2006 when Congress approved a two-year reauthorization measure, covering FY2007 and FY2008 in the National Transportation Safety Board Reauthorization Act of 2006 (P.L. 109-443). Since then, the NTSB has addressed a number of Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommendations to improve its strategic planning, financial and human capital management, risk-based accident response, training, and communications. The agency has also increased staffing to better respond to accident investigation demands. In 2013, GAO cautioned that the NTSB needed to continue its efforts to further improve training center utilization, close-out processes for safety recommendations, interagency communications, financial management, and workforce diversity management, and it recommended that the NTSB develop a formal strategy to maximize the utility of its cost accounting system.\nSome Members of Congress have expressed an interest in reauthorizing the NTSB. Issues that might be considered in the context of reauthorization include the adequacy of staffing resources and the cost of the NTSB\u2019s training center. Additionally, reauthorization could offer a legislative vehicle for addressing a number of transportation safety issues that directly relate to the NTSB mission, including the recoverability of vehicle recorders involved in aviation and maritime accidents, the privacy of data collected from vehicle recorders, and the use of recorder data for purposes other than accident investigation and reconstruction.",
      "type": "CRS Report",
      "typeId": "REPORTS",
      "active": true,
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      "topics": []
    }
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Transportation Policy"
  ]
}