Political Quotes

“This amendment literally just guts some very crucial reforms to this bill. What this amendment does is strikes a section in the bill that requires the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to remove from its Web site those compliance and safety accountability program scores. What we found is that the CSA is a flawed system. It treats safe carriers unfairly, and it has done very little to improve motor carrier safety records. The Government Accountability Office and the motor carrier stakeholders, they have been very critical of the CSA program. They have called for the reform. So what this does is make sure that those reforms are going to happen quickly. It doesn't hide anything. Once the reforms are in place, the scores are going to go back up on the Web site. In the meantime, that raw data concerning accidents, violations, out- of-service rates, it will remain publicly available; and it is also going to be available to law enforcement if they need to investigate or prosecute an unsafe carrier. So nothing is being hidden, but what this does is require that these reforms are going to take place and they are going to take place very, very quickly. I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.”