Editorial: Election-Year Paralysis

Little is accomplished in Washington during an election year, especially one when the White House is up for grabs and so is one-third of the Senate and the entire House of Representatives.

The best-intentioned proposals get sidetracked as lawmakers campaign for re-election, Cabinet secretaries promote the achievements of the administration and lower-level political appointees conduct job searches in case their party loses power.

Such is the case with Secretary of Transportation Rodney E. Slater’s efforts to reduce truck-related fatalities by half by 2009, a goal that may be falling prey to election-year paralysis.

Slater promised Congress that he would find a suitable candidate to head the new Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. That promise has run head-on into the realities of a clock ticking down the hours to Election Day. The secretary is finding few people who want to take on a new job and then have to turn in their resignation when the new president takes office a few months later.

A proposal to overhaul the 61-year-old truck driver hours of service was finally completed by the Department of Transportation in December, but the draft has languished in the bowels of the Office of Management and Budget since Dec. 3. DOT officials were so optimistic that the rule would be ready for unveiling by the end of April that they began drafting Slater’s comments for the press conference. As of late last week, though, the proposal was still sitting at a short-staffed OMB.

Slater approved an organizational chart for FMCSA in early January, but Julie Cirillo, who is now the acting administrator, didn’t get Office of Personnel Management approval to fill several key positions until March. Even though safety is President Clinton’s and Vice President Gore’s top transportation priority, as well as Slater’s personal “North Star,” OPM did not post the job openings until last week.

The speed with which Congress and Slater reacted in 1999 to address a three-year increase in truck-related fatalities raised expectations that government red tape would not stand in the way of safety reforms. Unfortunately, the momentum and the promise of a higher profile for truck safety within the Clinton administration seems to be slowing.

Last year’s achievements should not fall victim to election-year doldrums. The administration should throw its weight behind Slater’s efforts to improve trucking safety and give FMCSA the tools it says it needs to drive down highway deaths.