Im interested in keeping them safe not only as a get on and off school buses but in keeping them safe in the streets as they go to school. It is true that school buses have a relatively safe safety record. It is also true that children are injured every day or every year in bus related crashes. More than, i believe, and most accidents, we owe it to our children, to these students, to examine why these fatalities occur and what can be done to prevent them. There are school buses in my own district. Most take other modes of transportation, including walking, biking or riding in a car, going on public transportation. Children are often at greater risk outside the school bus than inside it. We have figure showing 264 students who died in School Transportation related accidents in the last 10 years. 97 were struck by a vehicle while walking near the bus. We are going to hear today from what congress can do to stop violations by drivers who illegally Pass School Buses loading or unloading passengers and to reduce fatalities or injuries as a result of these crashes. But as i indicated, i am interested in what we can do about children whether or not they are on or off buses. The burden of providing School Transportation, we are aware of course falls on the states and local districts. Some states are ahead of others in improving School Bus Safety. We know the state of new jersey which im pleased is represented today. I look forward to hearing what congress can do. To help ensure that we have safe vehicles. I want to thank each of the witnesses. For appearing today. We will listen attentively. What congress can do recognizing how much of the responsibility falls on the states. I am pleased to recognize mr. Davis. Im pleased to recognize mr. Davis, our Ranking Member. Thank you madam chair. Transporting 25 Million School children to and from school each day. School bus safety is an important part of the discussion. Statistics show the school bus is the safest and most regular regulated vehicle on the road. According to american schoolbus council counsel, children are 75 times more likely to get to School Safely taking a bus when compared to walking, biking or traveling by car. With that said, ntsa most recent estimates are that school buses account for roughly 0. 4 School Bus Crashes account for roughly 0. 4 of traffic fatalities on a nationwide basis. No matter how safe statistics show school buses are, we unfortunately see 46 children die each year on the school buses. And another 1015 die as a result of cars passing illegally. Each fatality is more than a statistic. Last september, we saw an accident where a truck collided with a school bus transporting a local Basketball Team home. Two adults lost their lives in that accident. Nine others were injured, including eight students. Reauthorizeo transportation programs it is my , hope we can address School Bus Safety and a bipartisan manner that prevents such instances from occurring in the future. This subcommittee has jurisdiction over to agencies that play an Important Role in School Bus Safety, ntsa and fmcsa. For sets the standards safety features provides training for bus drivers, and develops Public Awareness programs related to School Bus Safety. Fmcsa establishes rules for commercial drivers licensing and requires School Bus Drivers to have a cdl with a School Bus Endorsement. I look for to hearing from our witnesses about ways to make schoolage children safer as they wait for, load and unload, and ride a school bus. I want to thank our witnesses for being with us this morning and i look forward to hearing your testimony. I yield back to the chair. I am pleased to recognize the Ranking Member, mr. Defazio. Thank you. This is our second safety hearing of the year leading to reauthorization. The first hearing we heard testimony about highway fatalities, hundred people die every day in Motor Vehicle accidents per that is a life accidents. That is a life every 15 minutes. 37,133 in 2017. We need to look at ways to reduce those fatalities. Obviously we are doing better on the transportation of our precious kids on school buses. But it is not perfect. We will hear conflicting testimony today. And i will hope that members of the panel might depart from their prepared remarks and responded to some of those earlier. Mr. Benish from the and sta will ntsa will come out strongly against any federal mandate forced seatbelts on school buses. The ntsb will talk about what they see and if felt for a long time and for lap and shoulder. We will hear from chief fulton about how new jersey is doing what others say is not possible because of seat configuration, size of children, et cetera. That will be an interesting contrast. I think theres more substantial agreement on finding ways to better identify the bad apples. Out there, those who have had poor driving records or Significant Health issues and other things. There are those who have moved forward with prompt notification. New jersey is on a daily basis. By School Bus Drivers. Looking at the national cdl registry and other things that the federal government does control might provide some benefit in those areas. I look forward to the testimony, and this will help instruct us on whether or not we need to include any new provisions in the Service Transportation reauthorization, which i expect to have done by early next year. With that, i yield back the balance my time. Thank you chairman defazio. I know the majority leader provide us with information and that could be included in any new bill. I did not use all of my time and i am pleased to yield my remaining time, 2. 5 minutes to mr. Cohen who is had an experience that i think is the best way to lead off this hearing. I yield to my good friend from tennessee. Mr. Cohen there were two School Bus Crashes in 2016. One in baltimore and one in chattanooga. 12 children were killed. In chattanooga six children killed and 20 injured. After those crashes, the ntsb issued a series of safety recommendations to the highway Traffic Safety administration. And that was great. And they issued them to the administration and to the states to improve School Bus Safety. One of the wreck nations one of the recommendations included that states should enact laws to have all large school buses equipped with three point seatbelts. Other recommendations included Safety Measures such as inclusion of Collision Avoidance systems and automatic braking technology. Sadly and unfortunately, and unfathomably, the national Highway Transportation Safety Administration has not initiated the process to enshrine any of these lifesaving measures into federal regulation. And why i have no idea. They should have acted. Before this. Today i introduced hr3959, with senator tammy duckworth. Which implements those recordations to make School Buses Safer by making us recommendations that there are seatbelts in every seat. Additionally the bill would create a Grant Program to help School Districts modify buses to meet these safety modifications. I Hope Congress will work to enact these longoverdue measures. Theres no more precious cargo than our children. I have been trying to do this since i was a state senator. I know it is difficult to get beyond the industries. But it is something we need to do. And School Safety belts will save lives. I yield back and think the and thank the chairman for her time. I think the gentleman from tennessee. I ask unanimous consent that the chair be authorized to declare recesses during todays hearing, without objection so ordered. I also ask unanimous consent that members not on the subcommittee be permitted to sit with the Sub Committee at todays hearing. And ask questions. Im going to introduce the panel of witnesses. Before i introduce them all im going to yield to mr. Davis. To introduce mr. John benish. Thank you madam chair. Im pleased to introduce john benish, the president of the National Transportation association and a resident of the great state of illinois. Mr. Benish, thank you for testifying today. And thank you for the commendable work you and the other Bus Operators do in keeping our kids safe. The overwhelming number of kids that travel safely back and forth to our schools every day in school buses ought to also be commended. We ought to address the issues and Transportation Safety regarding school buses and other modes of transportation. But lets not forget that there is an overwhelming amount of students, the overwhelming majority, that arrive safely, go home safely, and do it again the next day, until they graduate High School Like my kids did this year. So no more school buses for me for a while. But thanks for your service and things for being here today. And thank you for being here today. Thank you, mr. Davis. Im going to run down the names of the witnesses and then call on them. We are pleased to welcome the honorable Andrew Mclean house chairman joint Standing Committee on main state who is here on behalf of the National Conference of state legislatures. Also the honorable brenda sue fulton, chair and chief administrator new jersey Motor Vehicle of the vehicle commission. Also ms. Kristin poland. Dr. Poland is the Deputy Director of the office of Highway Safety of the national Transportation Safety board ntsb and ms. And farrow, the farrow, the president and ceo the American Association of automotive vehicle administrators. Forgive my coughing cold. Welcome, all of you. We will proceed left to right. Try to give your testimony within five minutes or your Opening Statements rather than or your Opening Statements rather in five minutes. I would like to welcome or ask first to speak, mr. Mclean, who is speaking for the National Conference of state legislatures. Turn on your microphone. Thank you very much. Chairman holmes norton, distinguished members, mina ms. My name is Andrew Mclean. I am cochair of the National Conference of state legislatures, National Resources and infrastructure committee. I appear for you today on behalf of an csl, a Bipartisan Organization represent a 50 state legislatures and represented us of our states, representative of our states. 61 children who were schoolbus occupants died in crashes between 2008 and 2017. This is 61 children too many. States have responded with laws that fall into three category three categories. Laws requiring seatbelts on school buses. Laws authorizing cameras mounted cite drivers that illegally pass and stop school buses. Laws making changes to requirements for School Bus Drivers. Compare this to 132 bills in in 2015. Ills school buses are designed to protect writers through compartmentalization using safety features. These features do not necessarily protect children the way seatbelts do during side impact crashes or highspeed rollovers when passengers can be thrown from their seats. In may of 2018 a School Bus Crash took the life of one student and one teacher in paramus, new jersey. In response, new jersey enacted legislation requiring lap shoulder seatbelts instead of solely lap belts. In addition to new jersey, several states or parsley belts on buses. In 2018, more than 108 School Bus Drivers observed 84 thousand vehicles illegally passing school buses in one single day. Thankfully, most state laws require vehicles on both sides of the road without a median to stop and remain stopped while School Bus Stop arms and flashing red lights are to play. Are deployed. In 2014, wyoming became the first state to require all school buses to be equipped with a camera system to capture images of motorists illegally passing stop school buses. Alabamas law requires the images or video not include the face of a driver or passengers and be destroyed within 90 days if there is no violation. Overall, 21 States States explicitly allow local governments or School Districts to use cameras to capture images and issue tickets for drivers who illegally pass stop school buses. States have also moved to increase penalties for illegally passing a stop school bus. Illinois now requires revocation of a drivers license when someone illegally passes a school bus. And the violation leads to a Motor Vehicle crash resulting in death. Finally, i would like to highlight how straights have how states have strengthened the requirements for School Bus Drivers. For example, new york enacted a bill that required all School Bus Drivers be subject to random testing with all drivers required to be included in the random testing pool. States have also increased School Bus Driver training requirements. Rhode island enacted a law requiring the annual training for School Bus Drivers include a inservice training series. This is my fourth term serving as state legislature in the house of representatives and the third time chairing this committee and this past session was the most active in terms of legislation addressing School Bus Safety. Just over a month ago in midjune, maine passed two bills focused on bus safety. One will now require school buses purchased after this year to be equipped with a School Bus Crossing Arm and another addressed the issue of cars passing school buses. Initially, there was interest in simply increasing fines for violators, but we know that increasing the penalties does not actually solve the problem. We engage in this working group identified the enforcement of existing laws is the challenge because there is no way to identify a vehicle when the bus driver is the only person to have witnessed the violation. The working Group Recommended allowing the use of a camera and Traffic Control device to identify the violator. This was very controversial given our states high regard for privacy, but the testimony from grieving parents and Community Members was powerful and convincing. Too many kids are being hurt or killed while near a school bus. Madam chairman, i thank you for the opportunity to testify on this important topic and i look forward to your questions. Ms. Norton thank you very much. Next, the chair and chief administrator of the new jersey Motor Vehicle commission. Thank you and good afternoon. I am here representing the new jersey Motor Vehicle commission and governor murphy, and we are grateful for the opportunity to speak on such an important topic. Last year, as you heard, a School Bus Crash and mount olive, new jersey, tragically took the lives of a fifthgrader and a social studies teacher. And injured dozens of children. This crash broke our hearts and caused us to take a close look at how we keep our kids safe. New jersey is second to none in ensuring that our school buses are safe. Each one is inspected at least twice a year with a review of driver qualifications as well as vehicle safety. Our task force conducts an additional 100 unannounced inspections. Unannounced inspections have been particularly critical to identify private operators who have unqualified operators driving their school buses. We started requiring lap belts on all school buses in 1992 and we remain one of only seven states that requires them. In 1996, we started to require every bus be equipped with a crossing arm that swings out and prevents children from passing directly in front of the bus. This was modeled after betsys law in washington state. With the passing of abigails law in 2017, all new Jersey School buses were required to have sensors in front and back to detect an object or small child was below the field of view. Every night, the Motor Vehicle department generates a report of any driver whose license has been suspended. And transmits that directly to the Nj Department of education. After the devastating loss of Jennifer Williamson and 10yearold maranda, we resolved to do even more. In the first two years of its administration, governor murphy signed eight laws aimed at improving safety. These laws now require the following. One, all newly purchased school buses must have threepoint belts. Two, in the past, School Bus Drivers who accumulated 12 or more points were scheduled for suspension, and they are now scheduled for suspension if they received three or more moving violations, or six or more, and they must complete a defensive driving course to be restored. Three, local board of the bus transportation are notified by the department of education of suspensions within one working day and must confirm that the suspended driver is no longer operating a school bus. Four, in addition to the commercial driver license requirement, School Bus Drivers age 7074 must provide certification from a medical examiner every two years, School Bus Drivers over 75 must provide an exam every 6 months. Five, the state is conducting a study of School Bus Passenger safety, and finally, as a local level, School Bus Drivers and School Bus Aides must complete training biannually, and School District transportation survivors must complete an approved Certification Program at an institute of higher education. In some respects, we are fortunate that our governor, education commissioner, state legislators, and congress have all pulled together to enact measures to make our kids safer. But it has not escaped anyones notice that too many of these laws have names. Betsy, abigail, miranda. Too many tragedies. Too much loss. If i could convey any message to our sister states and to you members of this committee, it would be this do not wait for another child to die before you take action. I welcome your questions. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. Ms. Norton i appreciate the moving testimony. Dr. Poland, deputy, Highway Safety Transportation Safety board. Dr. Poland good afternoon. Thank you for inviting the ntsb to testify today regarding School Bus Safety. School bus travel is one of the safest forms of transportation on a road today. Children are safer traveling and school buses than any other vehicle, but improvements can be made. Today, i will focus my remarks on ntsb recommended movements related to the safety of children in the School Bus Loading zone. , occupant protection and other features. Compartmentalization, the current form of occupant protection on school buses is a passive system that performs well in frontal collisions. Unfortunately, in side impact collisions and rollovers, it provides insufficient protection. In 2008, we recommended that ntsa there was a final rule published that established standards for both lap and lap shoulder belt a voluntarily installed on large school buses. With the federal regulation in place, some jurisdictions are now equipping buses with the safety improvements but there is , no federal requirement for a school buses to be equipped with passenger lap shoulder belts. Additional, more recent School Bus Crashes have emphasized the need for change. Last year, following the catastrophic school bus trash crash in chattanooga, the ntsb required that each state require lap shoulder belts to be installed. Poor oversight resulted in another 2016 crash in baltimore, maryland. And the in chattanooga tennessee. In each case, the drivers continued to operate school buses unsafely with no remedial action being taken even in the face of a Driver Safety issues. Improving driver oversight can prevent crashes. In the chattanooga crash, the bus driver had about five months of School Bus Driving experience, during which, he accumulated numerous complaints about his driving performance. There was no systematic method for recording, tracking, or investigating complaints of driver behavior. In the baltimore crash, the driver had a longstanding seizure disorder yet was allowed to continue driving the school bus. We concluded that the driver understood his diagnosis of epilepsy and intentionally hid this during his examination. Further, although Baltimore City Public Schools was responsible for driver oversight, it failed to identify the bus driver as high risk. The ntsb has investigated several bus fires dating back to the 1988 collision near carrollton, kentucky resulted in 27 deaths. More recently in december, 2017, a fire ignited in the engine compartment of a school bus and spread to the passenger compartment resulting into deaths. The bus was not equipped with an automatic Fire Suppression system that would have delivered a fire suppressant inside the vehicles engine compartment, increasing the time to evacuate. We issued recommendations to ntsa to require the installations we also address similar recommendations directly to the school bus manufacturers. In addition, we recommended that there was an update to the requirements for flammability of school bus interior materials. We know that more children are injured or killed in the School Bus Loading zone than on the bus. Following our investigation of a 2016 collision in which a child was fatally struck while crossing the roadway to board his school bus, the board recommended that ntsa assess and update the guidelines on pupil Transportation Safety to address pedestrian issues. Related to route selection. We are now investigating three additional loading zone crashes in indiana, georgia, and mississippi in order to identify countermeasures for preventing or mitigating future injuries or fatalities in the School Bus Loading zone. Thank you for the opportunity to provide our recommendations for improving School Bus Safety. I am pleased to answer any questions. Chair norton thank you, dr. Poland. President and ceo cook, illinoiss corporation testifying on behalf of the national School Transportation assn. You may proceed. Good afternoon, Ranking Members, chairwoman norton, and thank you for calling this hearing today. My name is john, and i am the president and chief operating officer of Cook Illinois Corporation based in illinois. I would like to acknowledge my wife christine is here with me today. My dad started the company in 1958 with 75 buses. We operate 2200 buses and transport over 100,000 children in the chicagoland area. I started in the business as a teenager and have worked every position including cdl license to driver and occasionally you will even see me driving. I am here today on behalf of the national School Transportation association, the trade association for private School Bus Companies that provide School Bus Service under contract. Private companies provide approximately 38 of the nations School Bus Service. We have a saying in our industry that we bleed yellow. It signifies our commitment to safety for the children we transport. He today, nearly 500,00 school buses transport almost 26 Million Students to and from school. More than intercity, transit rail, and aviation combined. According to dot, the school bus is the safest form of surface transportation. As ntsa states, the school bus is the safest vehicle on the road. They operate in road and highway environments where approximately 36,000 fatalities happen annually. We mourn with the entire School Transportation community and families when the rare instances occur and learn from these. Despite the safety record, children are made vulnerable during the courses of the trip when they are waiting for the bus stops, crossing streets, and loading unloading from the school bus. D. O. T. Statistics show an average of 22 students are killed annually outside the scol b. That is compared to the average of four to six students that are killed inside the school bus. Observational surveys indicate an estimated 15 million vehicles illegally passed stopped school buses, and a 180 day school year. Sometimes pictures speak louder than words, so i would like to ask you to view this short video clip of an Illegal Passing that occurred with one of our members in new jersey last summe [video clip] this child walked away with a few broken bones, but sometimes, Illegal Passing has tragic consequences. Last october in rochester, indiana, three children from one family were killed by an oncoming driver who failed to stop for kids crossing the road to board the school bus. These tragedies can be prevented. We believe this is the most important issue facing the School Bus Transportation industry, eclipsing all others. This is why we are supporting a bipartisan bill, the stop for school bus act. I would like to ask for a revised support letter to be inserted into the record. If we are serious about saving childrens lives, this is the issue to tackle. Regarding seatbelts, we believe this issue is most appropriately decided at the state and local level. Ntsa has refused to enforce mandate school belts at the federal level. As communities are compelled to make difficult budget decisions, we stand with ntsa on this issue. We will work with the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify and i look forward to answer your questions. Chair norton thank you. President anne ferro, American Association of Motor Vehicle administrators. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today with this distinguished panel. Speaking on the important issue of School Bus Safety. I am here on behalf of amba, a nonprofit that develops programs in law enforcemetn and Highway Safety. Our mission is to support the state, provincial, and territorial officials in the u. S. And canada who administer and enforce Motor Vehicle laws. Safe drivers, safe vehicles, secure identities, and saving lives. With our members guidance, we develop programs to develop reciprocity to face these challenges across state and international borders. A good illustration of the work is in support of our state members and their efforts to comply with National Laws governing commercial drivers, just one example. In that role, the supporting role, we support and facilitate the development of best practices on cdl testing, we facilitate an understanding and communication on federal requirements, and those changes that come about periodically, and we work on both building and supporting the i. T. Applications across which cdl convictions, suspensions, and other cancel actions are transmitted. We rely heavily on jurisdiction members to guide our work, and we consider the dmvs and Highway Safety Agency Members to be the experts. With this in mind and understanding we have a very distinguished panel of jurisdiction leaders at the table, far more qualified on their states specific programs, i have limited my written comments to several National Programs in which the nonprofit is currently involved. The National Employer notification system, the transmission of driver medical fitness data, and some background in the written testimony on the commercial drivers license information system. I look forward to the committeediscussion, and thank you for the opportunity to join this panel. Chair norton thank you, president. Secretarytreasurer matthew condron, please step forward. Thank you for having me here to testify today. My name is matt condron, and i am the secretarytreasurer of teamsters local 384 in pennsylvania. I set up National Contracting goals and policies for teamster School Bus Drivers across the country. I am honored to be here today to convey the safety concerns of the more than 30,000 School Bus Drivers, monitors, and mechanics we represent. These hardworking men and women who ive had the honor of representing, need your help of making their jobs safer. Federal laws do almost nothing to help School Bus Drivers. Once a school bus comes off the manufacturing line, there are no federal rules requiring that it be kept in a safe working condition. Many people are shocked to find the u. S. Government plays almost no role for minimal standards of school bus operation in our country. This is a recipe for disaster. Private companies posed to make money or small School Districts strapped for cash are often left to decide if whether investing in safe drivers and new buses is a smart, financial decision whether than the right one. This should never be a dollars and cents calculation. In my view, many of these problems come down to the lack of rules governing School Bus Operations across the country. The privatized schoolbus industry is a perfect example. Almost one third of School Bus Operations in this nation are privatized. But there are no National Standards dictating what an unsafe or unreasonable bid for a private contractor to do this work is. Almost any bus company can come off the street and make a bid to take your kids to school. Often times, this means that small mom and pop Bus Companies who do not have the money to invest in new school buses, or do not pay the drivers enough will come in and offer a way less than they should to do this work. You may think that no School District would accept this kind of offer, and i wish you were right. But in many cases, School Districts are forced by law to accept the lowest bid that they receive. For cashstrapped School Districts,saving money anyware, it can be appealing to matter what the longterm costs. This practice also puts safe responsible carriers trying to do the right thing at a disadvantage. Unionized carriers are forced to take and make those investments. They are undercut by companies. Safety should be something every School District has to invest in, no matter what. What can congress and the federal government do . You can make sure there are basic standards in place. Make sure that they naturally have enough to do the work. When they dont, kids are sitting in the aisles on top of each other, putting them in enormous danger. If there is a crash on a windy, windy road, you need to make sure that anyone on a bus route has a real Maintenance Program in place where kids are not being taken to school with broken mirrors, brakes that have not been expected, or worse. You need to make sure that the companies have real Driver Training in place so the driver with the brand new cdl knows the basics of what to do and what not to do when there are 50 screaming children in the back of the bus. You need to make sure that drivers get a decent wage and real benefits so that good, safe drivers want to do this job, and once they are here, they stay here. The people we asked to drive our children to school are some of the lowest paid professionals. They get a median wage of 16 hour and they usually do not get to work 40 hours in a week. You only get paid for nine months a year unlike other school employees. Many of them cannot afford to take a day off, and often times, they will be reprimanded or fired if they do. Many drivers need to work multiple jobs to make ends meet, so they are exhausted to drive their route. Is that how you want someone who is driving your kid to school to be treated . The lack of federal oversight of even the most basic Safety Standards puts us all at risk. It is time for congress to take the lead and drive in this industry so no child is put in harms way on their way to school. Thank you and i look forward to your questions. Chair norton thank you, secretary condrom. I am pleased to see that so many School Bus Drivers might not even be anybodys jurisdiction because it might have been privatized, it is something the committee has to look at. I am going to begin with questions. First of all, we heard many things that need to be changed and helpful suggestions for you. Remember that we are the federal authority and much of the jurisdiction lies in the state. I would like to ask each of you as my first question to focus on the federal government and i am looking for you to indicate what priority do you think congress should place of the improvements needed that the congress could implement . Which would be your priority . Many of you had a number of different kinds of things that needed to be done. I will start with mr. Mclean and go down the line and asked that question. What priority for the congress . Mr. Mclean thank you for the question. We prefer a character versus a stick. One of the great things about democracy as we have so many laboratories of democracy. Different states are exploring Different Solutions. Chair norton you do not think that there is something that congress can do for a carrot or a stick . Mr. Mclean i think there are several things that government can do. Research the effectiveness of Different Solutions that states are exploring. I mentioned exploring the stop arms, we are exploring the crossing guards and there is very little data on what is actually going to solve the problem of kids being hurt and killed on and around school buses. So continuing with the research about effective strategies is one way the federal government can play a role. Additionally, incentivizing safety programs with states is a really important tool to incentivize different states. Chair norton i need to go down the line, incentivizing is very broad word. Thank you. Ms. Fulton from our standpoint, i would prioritize a notification system that crosses states. In new jersey, our drivers are driving other states quite frequently. Chair norton Identification Systems . Hon. Fulton sorry, notification systems. If a new jersey driver is convicted outside of the state, we do get notice that that is a suspension and we can notify, but if a new york driver is in offending in our state, that notice may be sent through the mail and may take time before new york finds out of the School Bus Driver was convicted of something that put them over the number of points. We have gotten a lot of support from amda, but while there are some ways to cross states in terms of identifying a driver that should be taken out of the drivers seat chair norton i want to get to all of them before my five minutes is up. That is a classic think the congress can do. Dr. Poland thank you. The ntsb has long advocated for the ntsb has long advocated for Vehicle Design aspects, forward Collision Avoidance, occupant protection everyone has talked about lap shoulder belts, and most recently, talking about postcrash events. Chair norton those are things that only congress can do . Vehicle design. We focus those recommendations to ntsa. Chair norton mr. Benish, my time will run out. Mr. Benish one of the things in my testimony was the stop at, Illegal Passing laws. Chair norton that is the federal government that can do that . Mr. Benish yes. The statistics, there are at least 80,000 Illegal Passings each day. Chair norton i am just trying to get the priorities. Ms. Ferro in support of chief fultons comment regarding oversight of drivers, research and tools to ensure that states and companies have timely access to driver conviction suspension cancellation data. Chair norton thank you. Sec. Condron one thing that we do not want to look for is there is a shortage of bus drivers across this country, and legislation that would diminish the pool of drivers would be a detrimental issue when trying to find who is taking the children to school. We agree there should be standardization. The bidding process needs to be adjusted where all schools can look at the safety aspects as opposed to accepting the lowest bid and the other thing, we believe with bus safety, but the standardization of the safety rules across the country so that every bidder is paying the same. Chair norton thank you. Those are very helpful suggestions as we prepare for the next bill and it sounds to me that the federal government is way behind given those suggestions on things we can do, so i appreciate those. I appreciate those recommendations from all of you. Im going to ask mr. Davis if he would offer his questions at this time. Thank you madam chair, and thank you to the witnesses. Vic zimmerman is a superintendent of monticello School District in illinois, and it is in my congressional district, and he has been active in ensuring that children get safely to and from school. He has been focused on the role that technology can play in keeping children safe when they exit the bus. This past january, his School District purchased stop arm cameras. I know he does not want to stop there and is always looking for new technology to help keep students safe. With that in mind, i want to start with mr. Benish, are there existing technologies that we can better utilize to increase the safety of children crossing the street in front of a stop bus . Mr. Benish we are looking at Illegal Passing laws, making sure that we look at not only the technology as far as radar, we discussed the other day that if there is a stop on the bus just like you have a system where ambulances can go right through red lights and make them turn green, a system that was hooked up for a slowing down of or a stopped school bus. We would also like to do Public Safety messaging and more technology as far as training littler a technology. It is ever about there. I had a School Bus Driver with four first grade boys, and one day, the mom picked up one of the boys to take home himself, so the bus driver is on is wrong and instead of having three at one stop, he only had two. Unbeknownst to him, the other onestop kid got off with the other two. So he pulls up to the stop to let one off when he only to let three boys off, only had two. He goes to the following stop, and what does he find, the mom is waiting for her son to get off and there is no child. . Here is the child my mom doesnt know and the driver doesnt know. The child got off at the previous stop. We have technology where we can a barde in easily in any dimension, why dont we have a lanyard on a child that scans in andhen he gets on the bus when he gets off the bus . Everybody knows where these children are, it is easy to check, it keeps the parents and the children safe so that if there was some kind of fatality accident, the First Responders would know how many children, boys and girls, or their ages are command where the bus was when they get there. Rep. Davis thank you, excellent advice. Ms. Ferro, welcome back. Are there any existing barriers that keep the government from adopting Safety Measures . Ms. Ferro i am trying to position that question in the context of amva to see what that would be in regard to from the perspective of Motor Vehicle administrators and Highway Safety enforcement, they would be working closely on any National Programs with the federal agency, and as chief fulton indicated, structuring a program at the state level. Are you speaking to the technology such as an employer educated system . Rep. Davis no, i am kind of on the technology. You have some experience sitting at the witness table before, are there any barriers that you see at the federal level that would stop state and local governments from implementing some of the suggestions that we just heard from mr. Benish, mr. Condron, or any other innovative approach . Ms. Ferro i am not in the position to answer what would be a barrier at the federal level. Rep. Davis how about you, ms. Fulton . Thank you. We have not run into any barriers other than what i mentioned which is keeping track of what happens intrastate. Keeping track of drivers outside. He state rep. Davis thats ok. I saved mr. Mclean for last. Based upon who he is representing. What areas do you think exist . Clearly, we see in the panel that others dont feel that there any barriers to state and local legislators and local officers being able to implement more Safety Standards. Mr. Mclean i think one of the most significant barriers is money. When we enact bills at the local level, we are considering where lots of local School District and local cities and towns have for a budget. A requirement on the local cities and towns, we have to incorporate fiscal impact, so that is a significant barrier at the state level that we have to consider when passing these laws. Rep. Davis i would ask you how we could fix it, but i am out of time. I yield back. Chair norton i must note to my very good friend, he asked the very opposite of the question i asked, which is what the federal government can do. He wants to know, is the federal government in the way . Mr. Garcia . Rep. Garcia thank you, chairwoman norton and Ranking Member davis. As a father of three, i know how stressful it can be to worry about our childrens safety, and i applaud this committee to evaluate the Safety Measures. Question for ms. Poland, you mentioned in your written testimony, and emergency braking system can serve to mitigate collisions. Earlier this year, i joined my colleague from georgia to introduce an act to require commercial Motor Vehicles to be equipped with an automatic emergency brake or aeb system. In 2015, in agreement with the national highway Traffic Safety administration, the ntsb recommended that all aeb come come standard with all Passenger Vehicles to help mitigate and avoid collisions. Briefly, would you extend the same recommendation to school buses and or commercial Motor Vehicles as my legislation does . Ms. Poland the ntsb actually has recommended automatic emergency braking for commercial vehicles and school buses. Most recently, we recommended this technology for school buses in our baltimore and chattanooga special investigations report. As you are emphasizing, automatic emergency braking provides protection in the last moments if there is a crash that is imminent, and provides that braking to mitigate the forces involved with the crash and in some cases, to avoid it. The ntsb has been a long advocate for this type of technology. Rep. Garcia thank you. Switching gears slightly crash , avoidance and mitigation technologies are critical to School Bus Safety. I would like to transition to a safety issue that is too often overlooked. The safety of the air our children breathe on school buses. I am working with senator kamala johannand a colleague, hayes, a former educator from connecticut, to introduce the clean air bus act. Over 25 Million Schoolage children rely on the School Bus Fleet to get to school daily. The tailpipe emissions that they are exposed to intransit and while idling are extremely toxic, especially as some of the school bus yards are located in urban areas. I asked permission to enter into the record the state of the air report. It further highlights the toxicity of air and heavy duty diesel engines including school buses. Chairwoman norton so ordered. Rep. Garcia thank you. This pollution negatively affects school attendance, health, and test scores, a burden that also tends to fall disproportionately on students of color and low income students like those in the district i represent, chicagos southwest and northwest sides. The Clean School Bus act would provide grants to help states replace diesel buses with electric buses to reduce student exposure to tailpipe emissions and curb our contribution to the climate crisis. Question for mr. Mclean, i is a former county commissioner and state legislator, i understand the struggles that state deal with to find funding for Safety Measures like this. Do you believe that states and local governments would be supportive of additional federal grants to modernize and electrify the School Bus Fleet . Rep. Mclean i do. That is a perfectly good example that one of the incentives that the federal government could use to provide increased Safety Measures for kids on school buses. Rep. Garcia back to ms. Poland. In your investigation of the oakland bus fire, you noticed the engine designs often failed to mitigate the spread of gases into the passenger compartment. That can exacerbate the situation involving a fire. Can you speak to whether or not these fumes can regularly enter into the passenger compartment, even in the absence of a fire . Our investigation focused on the post crash fire in that event, and when there was that significant fire in the engine compartment, how the incomplete firewall led to the fire being able to spread into the passenger compartment. Rep. Garcia can you comment on the entrance of fumes into the bus cavity . The ntsb currently does not have a position on the aspects. . I yield back. Chair norton thank you. Mr. Gallagher. Rep. Gallagher thank you. Ms. Poland, my colleague and i have introduced the safe to drive act, which would direct the department of transportation to use some of the money that has already been appropriated for grants combating distracted driving to new grants for the same purpose, but which would be eased you to qualify for. To what extent does the national highway Traffic Safety administration see distracted driving and cell phone use as affecting the safety of school buses . Ms. Poland the ntsb has commonly looked at distraction and in fact, this has been an item on our most wanted list for many years. Distraction can come in a variety of forms, and focus on distraction for School Bus Drivers. Of course, in all the discussions youre hearing today, we think about oversight of the drivers is critical and that is dealing with the actions of the driver including medical fitness and some of the many other aspects, but also, there are Technological Solutions that if there is distraction involved, that we can mitigate the effects of a crash before they happen, or even make that crash less honorable to the occupants inside. Reppo gallagher as you look at the data of crashes, has there been a consistent primary factor that has contributed to School Bus Crashes over the last caseal years, or is each just unique such that you cannot establish a trend, or is the sample size not large enough . Ms. Poland, the ntsb typically investigates a variety of crashes that may not be representative of all crashes. There is a wide variety of causes and that is why we look at different recommendations to address the countermeasures. You are hearing some of those today, from proper oversight of the drivers to technological interventions, to also increasing the time to evacuate in postcrash events, such as fire or water immersion. Rep. Gallagher and for anyone that wants to take a swing, to what extent do we think the overall congestion on the roads, increasing congestion which obviously would vary regionally and locally, is creating more safety concerns . For example, i have a bill that would allow volume trucks access logging trucks access to her was and get them off local roads, which of you not only as environmentallyfriendly, but also a safety thing to get it is easier to transit then going a lot of there are a lot of roundabouts in northeast wisconsin. And according to the national Highway Transportation Safety Administration, getting on and the bus, crossing the street, waiting for the bus can put children in significant danger, school buses operate on local roads which include stop signs and other variations in the flow of traffic. So in your expert opinion, would reducing congestion in general but specifically reducing large vehicles like logging trucks from local roads improve the safety of school buses . Ms. Poland so, school buses are large vehicles and typically in most crashes and Passenger Vehicles, they fare very well. Unfortunately, in crashes and other large vehicles, that is where we see the vulnerabilities, especially in the highspeed rollovers. We also have to be very careful of unintended consequences because the ntsb has investigated a number of commercial Motor Vehicle crashes especially in work zones where there may be some sort of vehicle that isnt stopped for a cue that was developed for it i would recommend Technological Solutions that we were discussing earlier on automatic braking for all commercial vehicles. I would just add that our tragic crash happened on a highway. So with a large vehicle striking a school bus on a major highway, so clearing the local roads wouldnt have been helpful in that situation. I think unintended consequences, there are a lot of different ways to look at it. Rep. Gallagher i certainly respect unintended consequences. Plot of the main reason i am sitting on the side of the island, but i appreciate your answers and the dedicated work that you do. Chairwoman norton i am sure it was unintended that you are on that side of the aisle. [laughter] thank you very much mr. Gallagher. Thank you. Mr. Gallagher is always welcome to switch sides of the aisle. We can talk afterwards. Rep. Gallagher i would have to not expect the unintended consequences. [laughter] never mind. Ms. Fulton, first of all, welcome. As a fellow new jerseyian, happy to see you here, and i am very happy to see the strides that new jersey is making in improving School Bus Safety Going Forward especially after the tragic accident that happened in my district. I was able to meet mirandas father and sister a couple of weeks ago when they came to washington to advocate for involvement in preventing tragedies like about bus crash from ever happening again. In that context, i wanted to ask you to say a little more about new jerseys employer notification system. I think he began to a little bit earlier, as i understand, it was recently updated to better prevent bad drivers from getting behind the wheel of us. Onder if you could explain behind the wheel of a bus. I wonder if you could explain how this system works. And some of the changes we have made. Yes. Thank you, congressman. When a notice of suspension is posted to a drivers license, and that drivers license has a School Bus Endorsement, airport a report is automatically generated. We do this on a daily basis, on every business day, and six days a week including saturday. We generate an a report, anyone who holds the School Bus Endorsement whose license has been suspended, and that goes directly to the department of ed, and the department of ed was notifying operators. The change in the law first shortens the time that the employer has, and the department of education so the department of education has 24 hours to notify the operator, whether it is the board of ed or the operator that the driver has been suspended, and they must conform within another 24 hours that the driver is off the road and not driving a school bus. The second piece of the we dont just but do that for suspensions or 12 point, which generates a suspension, we are now required to do that if you get six points or more or three moving violations. So there are more stringent requirements, and the notification has shortened. This is still relatively new, but that is how it works. Rep. Malinowski lets move from the acrossstatelines issue. If someone had an infraction, lets say they had the equivalent of six point in another state, moved to new jersey, atould happen, and how soon would it happen . Hon. Fulton first, if there is a notice of suspension that comes from another state, we may get that any number of ways depending on whether we have an agreement with that state where we get something electronically , or whether we get it in the mail the way that we communicate with some of our sister states. , andy come in the mail that may take time. It has to be managed manually. The sixth pointgo, we have not pointsrule, and that is a new new jersey rule, and we have not yet gotten that to happen automatically. There is not an automatic trigger of six points that comes in from another state. The real trick is getting notice from the other state, how long does it take for a conviction that happened in pennsylvania or new york, how long does it take for the conviction to get posted in new jersey . That is a manual process many times. Rep. Malinowski that leads to the obvious, final question. Which is whether a National Employer notification system would be helpful . Hon. Fulton it would be helpful for us, for sure. I know i have referenced amva before, but we use the existing system for other cdl information, so that would be helpful. Rep. Malinowski thank you. I yield back. Chair norton thank you. It may be that there is something that this committee can do to make sure that the National System occurs, so i appreciate those questions. Mr. Palmer. Rep. Palmer thank you. Ms. Poland, the nhtsa found that 97 for the sins under the age of 18 were killed in School Transportationrelated crashes between 2008 and 2017. Do you know how many were struck going around the bus out of the 97 . The national Transportation Safety board, does anyone have an idea . Certainly there is Data Available on the crash statistics. The ntsb estimates are a portion of those numbers that you are looking at. We have three ongoing investigations in three different states where we are looking at the highspeed roadways. Rep. Palmer i have several questions that i want to ask about this, but i think it is important to know how many of these for cavities were the result of people going around the bus as opposed to the bus actually running over the child. You have got both those situations. The reason i bring it up is that here,ding the testimonies one testimony pointed out that the passing of stop school buses during loading and unloading is reaching epidemic proportions. 105,306 School Bus Drivers in 38 states reported almost 84,000 vehicles illegally passed stopped school buses in one day that is incomprehensible to me that that many people are that stupid or that im concerned about the safety of the kids on that bus. About the safety of the kids on that bus. If you projected that out over 118 date school year, that is 15 illegallyhicles easy t passing a school bus. It is important to know how many of these fatalities and injuries are because people are passing school buses, and i think we may need to take a look particularly at the state level, for those of you involved at the state legislature, like the honorable ms. Fulton and mr. Mclean, that the penalties are to be much more severe for going around a school bus when it is stopped. Tohink it would be important know what is going on with that. The other thing i want to ask is a number of these accidents are in rural areas. Any idea about why so many of them are in rural areas . We had a lot of discussion about congested streets, that is really not an issue where are grew up. When i rode the school bus when i was a kid i am 64, by the way. Ms. Poland it is unfortunate to report that the National Association of state transportation yesterday put out new statistics for the last school year, and now they are reporting that there are over 95,000 Illegal Passings in the single day from 39 states reporting the information. As a mentioned earlier, the ntsb is looking at three crashes, all of them in what you would classify as rural areas and highspeed roadways, 55 mile per hour roadways. So our investigators are currently looking at a variety of contra measures including route planning and technological countermeasures to be able to make recommendations to our board to assist in the process. Rep. Palmer i want to get to some questions that will lead to some solutions. So what i am suggesting is that we look at these crash statistics, rural versus urban, look at the number of vehicles that are going around school buses. I would like to know whether or not these are rural incidents or in other areas, and in regard to these higherspeed highways, where i currently live, we have a highway that goes 55, but during certain times of day when kids are coming to school and leaving the school, that speed limit is reduced to 25 miles an hour. You treat this like a construction zone. Someone brought this up and i think it is a good idea that may be doing those times, we do it like a construction zone. We notify you ahead of time, you have to bring your speed down because you have got school buses operating in the area. I know that will create issues for transport vehicles and things like that, but i will pay the extra cost for a loaf of bread or bottle of water or whatever if it saves the life of a kid. One last thing if i may, i am kind of on a roll. And this is something that i wanted to ask mr. Mclean. The legislative role in this and ms. Fulton, too. My concern is about the abuse of alcohol and in some states, having requirements for how many hours after a bus driver consumes alcohol. But should also include recreational marijuana. The thing that concerns me is that there are commercial drivers who lose their license and in a lot of cases, they selfreport. I think we need a database where if someone applies for a license to drive a school bus, there is a database that you can search for and determine whether or not someone has lost their license before we put them behind the wheel of a bus carrying our kids. What do you think about that . I dont know if we can make it a federal law . Chair norton he is over time, so we will take suggestions under advisement. Rep. Palmer i thank the chairwoman for her indulgence, and i yield back. Chair norton i thank mr. Palmer for his comments, especially this notion about ways to make an altar is more severe for penalties more severe for passing a school bus. We should look into making it a federal issue, recognizing that most of these laws are local. And mr. Palmer raised a number of issues, i think this was raised before, about studies we need to do, statistics we dont have. We cannot pass another bill without making sure that those studies and statistics are not mandated. So thank you, mr. Palmer. Mr. Cohen. Thank you, madam chair. First, i would like to address my question to ms. Fulton. Thank you for the good work that you have done in new jersey. Why has new jersey able to make significant progress towards improving School Bus Safety with safety belts, when it has been so difficult in other states . Fulton congressman, i will be honest, it makes a difference when the governor and the members of our new jersey congressional delegation make it a priority to continue to work actively, educating the community, speaking out about it and speaking to our state legislators. He had incredible support across the board from members of congress and the governor. Who is your governor . Governor phil murphy. This was something that was important to him and to members of congress. They made it happen. Listen, no one wants to wait for a tragedy, but when it happens, that is an opportunity where people in a position to make a difference can choose to rep. Cohen were you are part of the campaign to make it happen . Hon. Fulton i was not. I cannot lobby rep. Cohen as an observer do you recall who the main people were against the bills . Hon. Fulton against the bill . There was not significant opposition. There were questions about the additional cost, but the additional cost of a couple thousand on a 54passenger bus, it is a cost for School Districts, but there was a lot of support from the School Districts where they had had accidents to go forward with it. Cohen thank you. Ms. Poland, as part of a study the ntsb recommended all new large school buses be equipped with lap and shoulder belts. It is probably enshrined in everyones mind. In addition, the American Academy of pediatrics says new school buses should have seatbelts. Whys it so important that this commonsense Safety Equipment that has already saved thousands of lives in passenger Motor Vehicles be placed in large school buses . Poland as i mentioned in my Opening Statement we know that school buses are extremely safe but they are vulnerable in specific kind of crashes. Over and over, we are seeing children injured or killed in these types of crashes. Technology has changed over time. We initially recommended occupant protection systems, but now we are seeing that lap and shoulder belts are welldesigned and in certain circumstances we can study how they are performing in crashes and finding that occupants are very well protected in these new designs of shoulder belts. But is why we came up with our recommendations to the state to have new large school buses be equipped with passenger lap shoulder belts. Rep. Cohen i vaguely recall from when i sponsored this as a state senator 20 years ago that there was some discussion to have safety belts, that the seats are perpendicular, right angles, and they are stiff and they did not move, and it would hurt the kids necks. Is that an argument that has been made . Ms. Poland it is an argument that has been made, but fortunately, the technology has advanced so they are able to protect and occupant that maybe unbelted behind occupants who are belted as well. We have been able to study some crashes where there have been onboard Video Systems that have shown the outcome and shown that there is good protection with these modern lap shoulder belts in modern school buses. Reppo thank you. the ntsb also recommended automatic emergency braking technology. It is widely available. You also concur that that should be part of a school bus . Ms. Poland correct. the ntsb has always advocated for crash prevention. Technologies like forward Collision Avoidance, automatic emergency braking, electronic stability control. If they can activate at that last moment before a crash happens, in some cases we can avoid the crash altogether. In other cases, we can just lower the severity of that crash. It is very important for school buses as well as allehicles. Rep. Cohen thank you. Those are the reasons which have been discussed here while we introduced hr2959, and we hope they can be included in some measure as time goes on and pass it into law. Thank you, mrs. Chairwoman, and i yield back the balance of my time. Chairwoman norton thank you, mr. Cohen. I will add mr. Palmer to ask a question when he was most likely out of time, but it was impossible even the time remaining for the question to be answered. So, i advise of those of you who do have answers to mr. Palmers question to submit it in writing and i will make sure that those answers get into the record. Mr. Balderson . Rep. Balderson thank you, madam chair. And i will assist that, because mr. Palmer, representative palmer took some of my question , talking about Rural Communities and the impact of bus travel for those students. I did have a stat that 52 of the School Bus Crashes occur in Rural Communities, and that is done by the national highway traffic administration. Could all of you elaborate on to some of the things, any recommendations that we can do to improve safety in Rural Communities . Some of the areas i represent in ohios 12th district is literally, there is one county that is not in the district anymore, but it has no fourlane roads, it is all state route or gravel roads. D a student is on that bus one way for two and a half hours. So i ask anything that you might have come a safety concerns that have been addressed for Rural Communities, since 52 of School Bus Accidents happen in those communities. Mclean,rable mr. Lead the way. Mr. Maclean im not sure i am in a position to say what would help Rural Communities specifically. I dont know that i have suggestions for Rural Communities. But i do think that allowing states to explore the solutions and having the federal government permit states to explore those solutions is really important to figure out what the best solutions are treated we are probably not ever going to eliminate all the accidents, but we need to figure out the best ways to reduce the number of accidents. I dont have a specific recommendation for Rural Communities. Rep. Balderson does anybody have a suggestion . Honorable fulton . Hon. Fulton i dont know that this is specific to Rural Communities, but in our state, rural and urban communities both may have less resources at their school board than suburban communities. Sorry. But one of the things that is critically important for us is the inspection from the state level of the school bus to ensure that they are not allowing a lack of resources to lead to the school buses not staying maintained, not meeting the standards. And just as important when we do those inspections, both the announced and unannounced, we checked the driver records. Are you sure the drivers you are putting behind the wheel, does everyone of them have a current medical certification, does everyone of them have a current cdl with a legitimate endorsement and no suspensions . You would be surprised how often private operators that are often used when funds run low, private operators, we have 330 summonses in the space of one year in our inspections, where private operators for the most part private operators had failed to keep those things current. And that leads to people being behind the wheel that are not qualified. Rep. Balderson madam chair, i will switch gears a bit. According to the national Highway Safety administration, the greatest risk is to schoolchildren getting on and off the school bus. Has any state successfully implemented reforms to better prevent these violations . Ndron i was just going to comment on that last question on the rural rep. Balderson you may comment. Ndron traditionally on the east and west coast, you dont see it as much, but in the rural area, you see the park out, they dont report it to a terminal or yard. The driver just gets in the boss bus and goes on their route. In rural areas you would need to make sure those vehicles are inspected enough, a little more oversight, and also that the driver is current on their training on what is current in that area. And would like to comment, being one of the bus drivers, and i think what mr. Palmer said is that more signage in those , mccueespecially rural sure we put specific speed limits at certain times of the day to slow down, just like we do at a construction site and as i mentioned in my Opening Statement, we do have a new act out, the stop for school bus act after the 19 with senator wolarski. Again, we went more public message and especially for a new drivers, and especially talking about distracted driving. In rochester, three students were killed this past year in a rural indiana, all from the same family, early in the morning. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, madam chair. Ms. Fulton, it is good to have you here. I dont know if you are aware of this, probably not, but before , asime in Congress President of the city council in northern new jersey, i was in Student Transportation for 10 years. I started out actually for one of the Educational Services commission as a School Bus Monitor where i was on routes in the morning doing spot inspections and making sure parents that had problems with children being picked up, all those kinds of issues. And worked my way up to supervisor of transportation, where i was responsible for 10,000 children, school buses handling transportation for special needs throughout essex county. Our most vulnerable students, stretcherbound children that were paraplegic. So, this is really where i cut my teeth in public service, so i am really glad to see that we are here discussing these issues. And also, i am proud that new jersey is on the cutting edge of safety. So, i fully understand the need for safe school buses and commend you for your work to increase their safety. My children i have triplets and in new jersey, they have early School Intervention where children go to school as early as 3 00. So, my children were on school buses in newark at three years old. As a matter of fact, there is one of them taking pictures of me right now so he has made it pretty far. So new jersey as a leader when it comes to School Bus Safety, requiring all school buses to have the three point safety belts. Yet the federal government does not require that all school buses have this. Can you explain how the three point safety belts improve bus safety, and do you think it would be in the countrys best interest to have these belts required nationwide . , thank you, congressman payne and if i might use a moment to say, i didnt get a chance to agree with my friend from the teamsters, but School Bus Drivers are incredibly valuable and incredibly underpaid for the responsibility that we give them. Rep. Payne i concur. Hon. Fulton with that in terms of statistics on three point belts, we get all our stats from the national Transportation Safety board. So to make sure i dont screw that up, i will pass that on to ms. Poland for the information on that. Ms. Poland so the ntsb has looked at a wide variety of crashes. I have investigated crashes and school buses for over 20 years now, looking at how School Bus Passengers, what happens during crashes when they are just compartmentalization inside the school bus, what it is on the la balance, and lap shoulder belts. We found recent advancements in the design the Left Shoulder belts has provided excellent protection of the occupants inside the school buses in a variety of crashes. Knowing the minimum performance for large school buses right now, compartmentalization is incomplete in many of these catastrophic crashes involving side crashes and rollovers, which lap shoulder belts provide that protection. Rep. Payne i also was able to meet with miranda touching father and her family several wondering,and i am that we have in new jersey, are they really a Good Foundation for the possibility of federal laws across the country . Anybody that wants to weigh in, please feel free. Congressman, we alreadye the laws. Perhaps my friend from maine can states feel. Ow the we still are learning in terms of how to execute some of these things and what will have the greatest impact. Rep. Payne asr know from anybody, my time is running out. The federal government should leave it to the states to explore Different Solutions because there are Different Solutions for each state. Ms. Poland and speaking with a variety of people that have implemented new lap shoulder belts in various jurisdictions, we are pleased to see that best practices are being shared among the community because i think we are all in agreement here that ultimately want the safe transportation of our students to and from school. Rep. Payne thank you, my time has expired. I yield back. Mr. Talbert. Rep. Calvert thank you. I appreciate the witnesses giving us the opportunity to listen to your expertise. I come from a little different background. I was a School Bus Monitor many years ago. I also had the privilege of serving my community in duluth, minnesota as a police officer. One of the worst things we can do is respond to a crash of a student getting on or off a bus. It is unconscionable that we see drivers do this every single day in this country. It is uncalled for. I have been in a fully marked , the second car behind a stop to school bus, lights on, out, right in front of me. It is unconscionable. So for me, to see it, ive cited it, i have testified in court, for me, we are in this together. When we put our kids at the end of the sidewalk or the corner, we expect them to arrive safe to and from school. We talkedective about the greatest concern is the crossing of the roads. Are we putting enough emphasis in our drivers education classes in each of our states, because they are all a bit , whatent mr. Mclean does your state require for drivers education total hours, and what do they put for the subject . Or do they not specify . Hon. Mclean i am not a Motor Vehicle administrator so i cannot speak to the exact requirements, but we do have a pretty rigorous process for getting a license. Rep. Stauber i am talking about 16yearold drivers going to drivers education. Is there anybody that thinks that we could enhance our drivers education . Because if the majority of it is happening, drivers not paying attention, or what have you, it seems to me that the educational component and the seriousness of teaching our Young Drivers mr. Benish. Mr. Benish that is something which with the stop act that we had proposed in my Opening Statement about putting more education. I recently had this discussion with one of my three teenagers two months ago about stopping in and around the school bus. Knowing that i own a School Bus Company and i am a driver, it was interesting to hear the perspectives of my teenagers, what they did know and did not know about stopping. They are brandnew drivers, and it is just scary. Rep. Stauber yeah, i think we have to allow our states to regulationstrict around stopping for a school bus. By the way, i cosponsor of the am a act. For me, one driver driving around a school bus is too much, one in this entire country. Because the safety of our kids is paramount. One of the things i wanted to talk about, you talk about the restraints and what have you. Do you feel comfortable saying that the restraints in a fire or water emergency for young kids, especially in rural areas where you are not going to get the help right away, do you feel comfortable in putting that mandate for the entire country . Stauber that is a good question, and many are asking that question. I can just lend some of the experience we have had where we have looked very severe crashes where there have been onboard camera systems, and we have studied the evacuations come and see that the passengers who maintained consciousness during the crash were able to self evacuate. So it is important for the students to be protected during the crash to give them the best chance to be it what a self evacuate. If they are unable to be protected during the crash, then the injuries may negatively affect their ability to quickly and safely evacuate the school bus. Rep. Stauber thank you very much. To the witnesses, i really appreciate we all want the school bus and the kids, their safety is the utmost importance. You are all experts in your respective fields, so i appreciate this opportunity to listen to you, and together we can increase, in my mind, we can increase safety exponentially using i think some commonsense measures. So with that, i yield back, madam chair. Chariwoman norton thank you. Mr. Bevan. Rep. Babin thank you, madam chair. And thank you witnesses for your expertise. Appreciate you being here. Ms. Poland, thank you for being here with us today. Each and every member of this Community Cares safely about the safety and security of our schoolaged children. We want to ensure that when they do get on the school bus to go to and from school that they arrive safely at their destination. However, i also want to make sure that our states and local communities are allowed the flexibility they need to implement proper regulations for their unique jurisdictions. With that in mind, how can congress balance the need for improved School Bus Safety without imposing a heavyhanded overregulated onesizefitsall , approach for our states and School Districts . Ms. Poland thank you for the question. The ntsb has made recommendations about Vehicle Design and we think it is important for the federal government to provide that minimum level of Vehicle Design including the crash protection and occupant protection. We have investigated any crashes many crashes where oversight of the drivers is a concern, we recognize that there arent minimum standards at the federal level, and much of that oversight happens at the state and local level. Many of our recommendations have focused on that state and local level. So again, we think those minimum standards should be provided at the federal level, but we think that it is important and critical that the state and local level can implement them and in many times exceed them. Exactly. I have a niece that was involved in an accident in beaumont, texas. A chartered bus, not a school bus. It was a terrible accident, with some fatalities, and my niece was injured. I think they have implemented in the state of texas, seat held, because of that seat belts, because of that one accident. Could you talk about some of the recent actions you he seen states and School Districts in order to increase the safety of students traveling to and from school or school buses . I know we have talked about that already, but if you would elaborate a little further, i would appreciate. Ms. Poland of course. we are very pleased to see so Much Movement on occupant protection. There are so many states that are now looking at passenger lap shoulder belts for large school buses, and we think this is a critical move. We are also seeing a lot of motion in the school bus manufacturers, where they are looking at some of the technologies for preventing crashes and they are implementing these in some buses as standard equipment. We also think that is very critical for the crash avoidance aspect. So theres a lot of movement. We are seeing a lot of sharing of best practices, including some of the aspects that dont necessarily address injuries and fatalities, but some of the aspects of trevor retention and destruction that could be improved with some of the technologies and installations we are talking about lap shoulder belts. Rep. Babin i will back the balance of my time. Chariwoman norton thank you. I actually got a little bit of good news on the subject, here. We have in Northern California the town of paradise, which had a horrendous fire almost coming up on a year ago now. We had one story of a local School Bus Driver who during this fire crisis, without being told by anyone, decided to drive his school bus back into town to the Ponderosa Elementary School in paradise, when the campfire hit town. His wife and family were already on the way to safety. In coordination with the school principal, he loaded 22 kids and several teachers onto the bus and took them to safety. Literally toree off his own shirt and give it to some teachers, who ripped it up in made into a mask. Thanks to his efforts and other teachers, all the kids escaped the campfire without major injury. So, a really good piece. Now, being california, as dangerous as the wildfires are and still will become school buses are under fire in another way. Board,ifornia resources over the projection of heavy vehicle users, decided to implement diesel filters, refitting existing buses with these devices. They can reach and exceed 600 degrees celsius when the engine is operating and have been prone to clogging with ash and unburned fuel, which causes them to catch fire. These are not isolated cases to buses, we have 20 of anecdotes with trucks and other vehicles that have been forced to be refitted with these devices. Largestlifornia, the population, it also has the largest School Bus Fleet and the largest number of students of any state. California usually has the most restrictive regulations on school buses as well. C. H. P. Has to inspect each bus every year. The drivers review their own vehicles every 45 days. Despite these regulations, these buses still catch on fire because this diesel specific filter that was required was not suitable to be used. That technology had not caught up to what was the requirement on those buses. Hundreds of thousands of vehicles were required to install them anyway, no matter the cost. I will through this ms. Poland. The federal government sets a pretty low bar for school buses and allows state to increase those standards as they see fit. Are you aware of any intervention the government has made when students are being put into danger by regulations . Ms. Poland our experiences with schoolbus fires are not related to the issue that you are bringing up. But some of the countermeasures would have recommended you have not heard of any case of trucks were buses that have been refitted with these filter systems catching fire . Ms. Poland our eye on crash we iowa crash, we made public recently had a School Bus Fire but not because the engine compartment caught on fire from overheating of the turbocharger. Of course in that case i also mentioned there was an incomplete fire law that allowed the smoke and fumes. That is one case. A turbo that was coming apart or lost a bearing and whether that could be something that could happen. We are talking about the diesel filters that have been forced to be refitted to many buses, trucks and lots of equipment in california and maybe other states that have joined in that. Is there any protection from the federal government over regulation that is causing fires simply by the fitting of this equipment . Ms. Poland the thes position is on Fire Suppression system and the engine compartment and flammability of the interior components. It would not address specifically the cause of the fire, but may mitigate the consequences and increase the time for passengers to be evacuated if those systems were fitted with those countermeasures. The federal epa is taking a look at how states sometimes go beyond to the harm of consumers, to the harm of safety of buses. Would ntsb be looking more at the possible harm in this case, that fitting these devices on untested, the technology not having made fully applico in the safety factor fully applicable in the safety factor, would they say that maybe these should not be fitted until they are properly engineered . Ms. Poland if there was a circumstance where that was the cause of a fire and the ntsb is investigating, i am confident we would look into that and certainly address countermeasures that may be able to mitigate the consequences. Rep. Lamalfa might be able to look at countermeasures. So do you have no statistics on how many fires have been caused by the refitting of these vehicles with these filters . Ms. Poland no, sir, we dont. Rep. Lamalfa have you heard of it . Have you heard of this happening . Ms. Poland as i mentioned earlier, that has not been the cause of any of our school bus nor our motorcoach fires. Rep. Lamalfa in general. Trucks, buses, diesel vehicles that have had these filters. Ms. Poland not that specific issue. Chariwoman norton your time has expired. Rep. Lamalfa never heard of that. I am a proud sponsor of the stop for the schoolbus act of turning 18, and this legislation includes the review of technologies for schoolbus safety, so i am very proud of that. Let us hope that most in the senate. It is a very big boat. , theing you said most recent study is that 95,000 people Pass School Buses with illegally a day. That is really stunning to me. One of the things the act includes is a review of technologies for School Bus Safety. I am exposed to some of these in a different settings in law enforcement. I was a federal organized crime prosecutor for 20 years, so i am aware of some of these technologies. Lets talk about a few. There are some technologies out there that would pay for themselves. If you would let me indulge if you would indulge me for a example, if theres a camera that can take a picture of the cars great that is passing, you got 95 dozen cars doing this a day, it would pay for they would pay for themselves. Something that can get to the distracted driver, because i think that is a part of it, and it gets to the lack of respect for these warning signs. I think we need to take the gloves off with these knuckleheads who are doing this. The most recent statistics showed that 90 some odd children were killed as pedestrians, not on the bus. In different accidents, getting off the bus and getting on, as you have noted. I would like to hear what you think about my possible proposal. For example, there is technology out there that if a car goes by, he you can put the picture up and tell right away whether the registration is expired or not and give them a ticket. Why can we not have that on buses . I would like to hear from you, and some of the others. Ms. Poland the ntsb has looked at some aspect revolving around will loading zones including route selection in order to minimize exposure in these circumstances. We have three investigations ongoing right now, exploring a variety of these technologies that can aid in the loading zone in preventing and mitigating these injuries and fatalities. Our investigators are looking at a variety of different asp x i will aspects. I will open up to our partners here at the table, because we are also exploring some solutions at the state level to some of these technological innovations. That ts go unnoticed it cannot go unnoticed that the distracted or component is quite serious. It seems to be getting much worse. One statistic had in the 60s, several thousand a day, now it increase, a gigantic and indicative of an escalation of distracted driver, or a person who just disregards it, and i think it is time to take the gloves off for them. Mr. Benish we can get you a statebystate schoolbus Illegal Passing love breakdown. Some states have enacted the taking picture of licenses and so on, but as you mentioned, taki the gloves off as needed, because it is not preventing them from doing that. With the stop act or work, we need more signage, more education for Young Drivers, and obviously, distracted driving is a huge problem, especially in trucking and school buses, that is where we see more accidents on the road. We have to make it a lot more severe, and we have to do a lot that her job in making our presence know about the stopping for school buses. I understand. Anybody else want to add anything to that . Just very briefly, we just to put a bill to allow stop arm cameras on school buses. We believe this is a critical issue as it goes to the enforcement. Police believe increased fines do not solve the problems but enforcement does. This will allow the prosecution of violators of that law. Asnot increasing the fines much as saying everyone that passes you will get a picture of the license plate and they will get smacked. I yield back. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all for being here today. I am happy we can come here today to talk about solutions to address the School Bus Safety. I am a mother and grandmother and i want to say that the safety of children should be our first priority. Dr. Poland, do you know what percentage of school bus crosses are not classified as crashes . I dont have the specific statistic but the majority of school buses on the roads today are classified as large. Ok. Virginia,ton, west one of our School Districts held a demonstration on a new lighting system that illuminates the path students take in the dark. It has been extremely helpful. Have you noticed a trend in the amount of accidents at night . It has been a longstanding trend that more students are injured and killed in the loading zone than on the bus itself. Of course we know that school bus operation changes throughout the year, so sometimes it is in low light conditions. Of course with these crashes we are looking at in the three states i mentioned earlier, 55 mile per hour roads, lowlight conditions, a variety of countermeasures our investigators are looking at and we are looking forward to bringing those recommendations to the board in a new near future. Is Anything Congress can do to work on this issue . There is a variety of aspects. Certainly having this hearing is one of them. Our state partners have a variety of countermeasures they are already implementing, so we are looking to those successful cases when we are investigating these types of crashes to see what the best practices are and what are proven technologies to reduce injuries and fatalities in the School Bus Loading zone. More consistent . Our state was in legislature and a mother, grandmother came to me and my officemate. Her sixyearold granddaughter had been killed, run over getting off a school bus. And of course she was heartbroken. And it took us quite a while to get legislation through to at least double the fines. Its been an ongoing thing to try and change the laws as they go. Ean, we heart ache i mnean have developed quite a relationship with this grandmother through it all. That little girl would be turning 16 now. It just breaks your heart. One of the biggest problems we have in School Bus Safety are the people who are ignoring the school bus unloading stoplights. Currently indiana has taken measures to address the placement of school buses that are operated on a u. S. Route or state route. For my understanding, the driver may not load or unload a student at a location that requires the student to cross a roadway unless no other safe alternatives are available. Have you all seen other states take steps to improve unloading safety . Any of you . Ok. Routes, the state of indiana has issued a law that you cannot load or unload a student at a location on a 55 mile an hour highway unless there is no other alternative. I do not know any specific issues around roading. Dealingbeen doing with issues on or around the loading and unloading zones. Never on a highway where they have to crossover . Not that i know of. I know in driving myself when i see a school bus on the side of the road and it is two lanes here and stuff in the middle, and they are stopped, a lot of people just keep going. And it is extremely difficult to get that child across the road. Have there been any other best practices implemented to keep kids safe in loading and unloading zones particularly in those unsafe traffic areas and dangerous neighborhoods . Dangerous neighborhoods, yes, especially in the city of chicago, we do have certain areas where they have chaperones, people who will help with that. Getting back to your original question, according to what i have heard from the state of california, the driver has to physically walk off the bus with the student with a sign and walked them to the side of the street in that instance. I guess over the past 30 or 40 they have had a low frequency of accidents. They dont have a helper who would get off the bus and do it . It is actually the driver. Ok thank you. I yield back. Thank you very much. Thank you to the witnesses for your testimony today. I live in a large, rural district back in arkansas where bus transportation is a big issue. I have the opportunity to serve on a school board with the first elected office that i held. Then in the state legislature, we dealt with a lot of School Related policy. As we look at the impact of what we do with bus safety and transportation, it probably has a disproportional impact on rural schools because so much of their budgets go to transportation with the longer routes and the additional buses that they have that are not sometimes fully utilized. So, i think you mentioned something about cost. I might have heard you mention something about cost effectiveness. Obviously when we are talking about school buses, safety outweighs cost. But the cost has to be a consideration because schools just dont have the funding to go out and purchase all of the latest and greatest equipment that is there. One thing, the gentleman asked questions earlier about air quality. I know that there are some really great clean Bus Technologies out there. Compressed natural gas buses. An issue i saw from that on the local and state level is a lot of schools would like to put in cng buses. And the cost of a new cng bus is equivalent to the cost of a new diesel bus. But you have to have this elaborate cng charging station that is a Large Capital investment for schools. So they often cannot afford the upfront Capital Investment so that they can take advantage of the low operating costs with cng buses. This was 10 or 12 years ago when i was working on these issues. What is the safety, as far as compressed natural gas versus diesel or conventional gasoline buses, are there differences in the safety or the crash tests or with air quality . Cng buses were introduced about 10 years ago and just never really caught popularity because of exactly what you are saying, the costs. The fueling stations run anywhere between 200,000 and 300,000. You do have to make some modifications to your shop and to your yard due to the explosiveness of the gas. The new diesel engines that are out there today are actually pretty clean. Someone told me the other day that the air coming into a diesel, or coming out of diesel in. Leaner now than going you dont see a big puff of black smoke anymore with Yellow School buses. We also run some propane busses at home and two electric school buses on order. There is technology out there. As far as the air quality inside the bus, and diesel emissions, there has been some funding out there that has got a lot of those older buses off the road. The buses today are definitely way cleaner than they were 10 years ago. When i was back on the school board we would purchase a few buses every year and rotate new buses through the fleet. So, after a while, you get older buses that do not have the latest technology. As kind of advice to schools, is it better to wait and spend money on the new bus with the latest safety gear, or to invest that money into your old equipment, putting safety gear onto it . It is probably a bus by bus feature. What we talked about today is stability control will be standard pretty much on all school buses. Emergency braking technology is in the forefront and should be on most school buses in the near future. I guess if you can afford it, and for the safety of e children and the newer bus, it would probably make a better practice to buy a newer bus. You were talking about the tremendous amount of passes of stopped school buses. Had do we educate the public more to know when there is a bus stop with the lights flashing and the arm out, that means stop . And i say that just from practical experience. Within the last couple of months, i was driving on a road in my district. It was a very wide, nice road. Two lanes of traffic each direction with a turning lane in the middle. 65 mile an hour speed limit. I started meeting a school bus on the far side of the road slowing down to stop, so i stopped in a 65 mile an hour zone, and i think i got passed four times. And the kids were getting off on the other side of the road. It was not necessarily any danger for those children who were getting off on the other side of the road. But still, people just ignored that stopped school bus. A safetywas kind of issue with me stopped in a 65 mile an hour zone with cars coming up real quickly. How do we educate the public and do a better job with that . Because when you take your drivers test is only when they tell you. Someone can answer but the time has expired. Is there any answer . The ntsb is focusing on route selection. Then with our continuing investigation we are looking at countermeasures because three of our students were crossing on speed oncoming roadway. So we are looking at countermeasures to try to address that issue specifically. Thank you. Thank you. I want to welcome chairman cummings, who asked permission to sit with us at this hearing and ask questions. Rep. Cummings on january 11, our, congressman coen, former colleague, congressman oury duncan, we wrote previous chairman to hold a hearing on School Bus Safety, but he did not answer our requests. I want to thank chairwoman thisn for your focus on critical issue. 2016, six people were killed in baltimore in my hometown when a School Bus Crashed into a car, then struck cemetery and finally collided headon with a Public Transit bus. The national Transportation Safety board investigated this crash. In a crash in chattanooga, adoptede, in a report may 22, 2018, addressing these two accidents. The report stated, and i quote, although the specific safety issues differed, the crashes shared one common factor. Poor driver oversight by both the School Districts and the contract of Motor Carriers which resulted in unsafe operation of school buses, end of quote. The report found that the driver of the Baltimore School bus had quote, repeated license revocations and suspensions over several decades, end quote. It had also uncovered instances in which the driver fraudulently obtained his license as well as numerous moving violations. In addition, the driver had medical conditions, including a history of seizures that should have disqualified him from driving a school bus. In march 2017, the ntsb recommended that the baltimore Public Schools request a performance audit of the Transportation Department and then take corrective actions to improve internal controls. Ntsb also recommended that the Maryland State Department of education review the state regulations to clarify disqualifying conditions and require notification to the state department of education regarding all drivers who are determined to be not qualified to drive a school bus. Ntsb also made several recommendations to the maryland Motor Vehicle administration. Dr. Poland, what is the status of the recommendations you made to the Baltimore City School System and to the state of maryland . So, those early and urgent recommendations have been updated. We received correspondence from Baltimore City Public Schools about the performance audit. And based on the correspondence and their actions, we have closed that with an acceptable action. There was another recommendation to Baltimore City Public Schools that they take corrective action. That recommendation is still open while they continue to do those corrective actions. And that is in an acceptable status. The recommendation to the maryland state of education addressing the code of regulations is in a status of acceptable response. So maryland has communicated with us that they are working on that recommendation and they are in the process of implementing it and we found that acceptable. Rep. Cummings according to a anort, it showed, quote, accumulation of errors and a systemic absence of leadership over an extended period of time, end quote. And a failure of Due Diligence over the systems that were in place. Have steps been taken to address these findings and to implement corrective measures that will ensure that no more individuals are able to drive school buses with disqualifying conditions in maryland . Maryland is currently working on implementing that. Because we were able to share that on a nationwide level, other states are looking at those recommendations and examining their own systems to ensure that, in other states, they are having appropriate reporting and that action is being taken at the local level to remove drivers who are unsafe for a variety of reasons. As you mentioned. Thank you, mr. Cummings. We appreciate your attending. Are there any other any further questions from members of the subcommittee . Yes. I would like to followup where i left off on the last question. Ms. Poland ran out of time. Have you heard of anecdotes or instances of diesel vehicles being refitted with Filtration Systems catching fire because of them . Whether its trucks, buses, Farm Equipment . I can answer that on my own but i would rather hear yours. Sure. As i mentioned earlier, our ongoing investigations and previous investigations do not deal with that specific cause. My background is biomechanical engineering. We have experts at the ntsb who are experts in fire safety. So we would be happy to take your question back to them and some are subject Matter Experts are more familiar with your questions. I would like to followup as well. We hear a lot of talk about technology coming to save the date here but it really comes down to there is a human factor of those driving the buses and the people driving cars. So i think the focus, we are going to have the most success is indeed, how do we tighten that up. He was talking about qualifications for bus drivers. Do we have anything close to a 50 state standard on who is eligible . What their record is . What their physical capabilities are . A vision for being able to help students in situations . And i would also like to follow that, i think it was commented on, is there a 50 state standard or do all states he said in california, if it child is going to cross the road, there is a whole lot of difference between letting kids off on the edges of the road and they go this way, but if they are to be crossing the road, you have red lights, you should be stopping cars. And we hear that they are not. But if the driver is also getting out, the driver is the adult in this case and they are the one who should be trained and making sure there are no cars coming when they make that commitment to go across the road to the other side. So do we have a 50 state standard on the driver getting out with a sign or something to prevent the kid from just running across, the driver being otherult, to cross the side of the land to the other side of the road . My we have a standard previous thought on drivers in general . Currently, i do not think there is a standard across 50 states to do that. It is just in california. What i understand. All right. It seems like that is the sensible thing, because the driver is the adult. I would like to ms. Poland, when you talks about collisions with children by cars, are the vast majority of them on crossing the roadway or is it happening on the safer side where they are getting out and just going away from the road . I would think that the vast majority would be on crossing the road. If we are enforcing on that better, then we can have a lot more success. Maybe it is the driver getting out as a 50 state standard. And also, and just regular drivers, people have been driving a while and have not taken the test in a while. I think we need to have an emphasis on the difference between a flashing yellow light on a bus and a flashing red light. Because people are getting more manyore there are so holdups in traffic so they dont take the bus seriously, people dont stop for a flashing yellow light, there is no kids present, once this traffic is stabilized, this is more Driver Training should be in place. It is making drivers mad and all the stuff, because driver rage is a big part of a lot of things. There needs to be that finesse there of the yellow light to get things calmed down and then the red light when youre actually going to have students. I know i gave you a few things to think about there, but that seems to be where the success is going to be. We hear a lot about technology saving the day. We have to have topnotch drivers. And car drivers need to be a little more cognizant of the difference of yellow light being ok, slow down, and red light you have to stop. And the drivers differentiating, go ahead and i will stop. As you mentioned, this is a multifaceted approach for school bus Transportation Safety, from the Human Performance of the bus striver and the drivers of the road around, to those lastminute technological interventions that can prevent a crash, to protecting the occupants when a crash does happen. So i certainly appreciate your comments. And that is something we will consider as we move forward. Again, those stats, if we can get those stats you mentioned on these crossing the road statistics by and large. Is it more 5050, and is it while the bus is still there or is it after . Something like that would be very instructive. Appreciate those questions. Perhaps you could get the statistics to the committee itself so we can put them in the record. That would be very important. Yes, maam. Are there any further questions from members of the subcommittee . Seeing none, i want to thank each of the Witnesses Today for really very helpful testimony. Each and every one of you gave not only helpful information to us, but i must tell you, i think homework for us. When i came into this hearing, before i heard your testimony, i did not have what i would call an agenda. You have given me one now. Detail of your helpful testimony. I ask the unanimous consent that the record of todays hearing remain open until such time as our witnesses have provided answers to any questions that may be submitted to them in writing or that members have already asked. And unanimous consent that the record remain open for 15 days for any additional comments and information submitted by members or witnesses to be included in the record of todays hearing. Without objection, so ordered. If no other members have anything to add, the subcommittee stands adjourned. Thank you for attending. [captions copyright natial cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] announcer a look at our live coverage for wednesday. On cspan at 10 00 p. M. Eastern, a group of state Department Officials join a discussion on public diplomacy. A. M. My current and former pentagon officials share their views on cyber defense, artificial intelligence, and the role of state and national security. On cspan 2 at 7 00 a. M. Eastern, british Prime Minister Boris Johnson participates in his first Prime Ministers questions session has brexit negotiations continue. A. M. , the u. S. China economic and Security Review Commission holds a hearing to review the relationship between the United States and china. Is the 23rdn 3, annual Development Bank of latin america conference in washington dc on issues related to the americas. 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