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2.1 Overall Efforts
NHTSA has long recognized the need to move
forward on harmonizing existing regulations and to create a forum
for international research that ensures the development of future
regulations that are compatible. NHTSA has been and continues to
be involved in the regulatory efforts of the Economic Commission
for Europe (ECE) of the United Nations, as a regular participant
of the ECE's Working Party on the Construction of Vehicles (WP29)
meetings and those of ECE's working groups of experts. These
bodies develop and approve motor vehicle regulations, which are
eventually adopted by member countries, especially by the
European Union and its member states. NHTSA's participation in
the deliberations on specific regulations by these groups has
increased the compatibility among European and U.S. regulations.
On November 10-11, 1995, a Transatlantic
Business Dialogue (TABD) Conference, an initiative of the late
Secretary of Commerce, Ron Brown, and Commissioner Bangeman of
the European Union, was held in Seville, Spain. At the
Conference, participants agreed on a series of joint
recommendations to build a strong framework within which trade,
investment, capital, and technology can flow across the Atlantic.
On December 3, 1995, at the Madrid Summit, the President signed a
joint European Union-U.S. "New Transatlantic Agenda"
and Action Plan which incorporated a number of these
recommendations, including promises to achieve global regulatory
uniformity and to encourage a collaborative approach in testing
and certification procedures by promoting greater compatibility
of standards and health and safety-related measures. At the
prompting of some participants of the Seville and Madrid summits,
a broad cross-section of industry representatives decided to hold
a Transatlantic Automotive Industry Conference on International
Regulatory Harmonization, in Washington D.C., on April 10-11,
1996. During the Conference, the U.S. and European automotive
industry made recommendations for actions by the U.S. and the
European Union concerning (1) the international harmonization of
motor vehicle safety and environmental regulation, (2) the
intergovernmental regulatory process necessary to achieve such
harmonization, and (3) the coordination of vehicle safety and
environmental research.
NHTSA is committed to carrying out the
Presidential initiatives of the New Transatlantic Agenda within
the framework of existing legislation and procedural rules.
Evidence of this commitment are: (1) joint efforts by NHTSA and
the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the drafting of a
multinational proposal by the Steering Group of WP29 to establish
an agreement on global harmonization in parallel with the amended
1958 Agreement that would be administered by WP29, thus
transforming WP29 into a forum for the global harmonization of
motor vehicle safety and environmental regulations; (2) the
agreement achieved at the 15th International Technical Conference
on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV) on an International
Harmonized Research Agenda (IHRA) that will facilitate the
development of globally harmonized regulations based on the same
science; (3) continuous participation in the Asia Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the North America Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA), two fora that encourage the elimination of
technical barriers to trade; and (4) the development of a generic
process for the assessment of functional equivalence of U.S. and
other countries' safety regulations.
NHTSA has also held two public meetings to
seek comments from a broad spectrum of the population on its
harmonization activities. At those meetings NHTSA reiterated its
commitment that: (a) the safety benefits of U.S. standards will
not be reduced; and (b) where a U.S. standard proves to be less
stringent than that of another country, it would be upgraded
within the framework of NHTSA procedural rules.
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