Inside This Issue...

The Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance, and Continuing Appropriations Act of 2009 (HR 2638) was signed into law Sept. 30, 2008, and was assigned Public Law number 110-329. This emergency funding bill will be carried in the fiscal 2008 Homeland Security appropriations bill that was passed by both chambers last year but never taken to conference or enacted. The Homeland Security measure would provide $40 billion including $50 million in grants to help states implement the REAL ID program.

According to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the main criteria that the Department of Transportation's (DOT) National Highway Safety Administration (NHTSA) officials use in deciding how to respond to new fast-moving technology-based trends do not address the uncertainites that are characterized by such trends. DOT also faces challenges in developing additional, higher quality or more timely evidence on the changing sizes of the safety impacts of such trends—despite attempting to obtain appropriate data through both long-standing and new methods. GAO recommends that DOT (1) develop an approach to guide decision-making on new, fastmoving trends that can affect highway safety; (2) evaluate whether new data systems and analytic techniques are needed to provide information on such trends; and (3) employ specific strategies and schedules in communicating with Congress about these and other trends. DOT disagreed with the first of these and did not comment on the other two. GAO continues to recommend all three. View the entire report online at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d0956.pdf .

Congress has adjourned and is scheduled to reconvene on Jan. 3, 2009. It has not adjourned sine die, however, so Congress could reconvene before then, should the need arise. Hearings on the financial crisis are scheduled to be held throughout the month of October.

The Michael Jon Newkirk Transportation Safety Enhancement Act of 2008 (HR 7210) was introduced in House on Sept. 29, 2008. The bill would require national standards for state safety inspection of motor vehicles. View the text of the legislation for more details. The bill was referred to the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on Sept. 29, 2008.

The Senate confirmed the nominations of Rosemary E. Rodriguez, Donetta L. Davidson, Gracia M. Hillman and Gineen Bresso Beach as Commissioners of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC). Commissioners Rodriguez, Hillman and Davidson were reappointed to a second term on the Commission. Commissioner Beach was appointed to a first term. The Help America Vote Act specifies that commissioners are nominated by the president on recommendations from the majority and minority leadership in the U.S. House and Senate. Once confirmed by the full Senate, commissioners may serve two consecutive terms and no more than two commissioners may belong to the same political party. For more details about the commissioners, view the EAC press release.

The PRICE of Homeland Security Act (HR 6098) was cleared for the White House on Sept. 29, 2008. The bill would remove personnel caps and employment limits with the goal of giving states and localities more flexibility to hire and retain intelligence staff. View the text of the legislation for more information.

The National Highway Transportation Administration (NHTSA), and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) have posted a joint notice proposing implementing regulations for the E-911 Grant Program. This notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) would allow for states and state agencies to apply for grants to institute an electronic 9-11 response system. To submit comments and for more details, view the full NPRM is at http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2008/E8-23266.htm. Comments must be received by Dec. 2, 2008.

The Unified Carrier Registration Plan (UCR) Board of Directors scheduled its next meeting for Nov. 6, 2008, from noon to 3 pm, ET. This meeting will take place telephonically. Any interested person may call Mr. Avelino Gutierrez at (505) 827-4565 to receive the toll free number and pass code needed to participate in these meetings by telephone. These meetings are open to the public.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s National Cyber Security Division is sponsoring the fifth annual National Cyber Security Awareness Month this October, designed to educate the public on the shared responsibility of protecting cyberspace. The department will recognize this important initiative through a series of events aimed at raising awareness of the ways in which citizens and businesses can better safeguard themselves in cyberspace. Everyone can practice good cyber security in their homes and offices. Installing virus detection software and updating it as necessary, creating strong passwords and frequently changing them, backing up important files, and ignoring suspicious e-mails or websites can help protect you, your family and your business. For more information on how you can protect yourself against cyber attacks, please visit www.staysafeonline.org. To report an incident or cyber vulnerability, please visit www.us-cert.gov.

On Oct. 29, 2008, President Bush announced his intention to nominate David Kelly, of New York, to be Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration at the Department of Transportation (NHTSA). Kelly currently serves as the Acting Administrator and Chief of Staff of NHTSA. Prior to that, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Government Affairs at the Department of Transportation. Earlier in his career, he served as the Director of the Air Bag & Seat Belt Campaign at the National Safety Council. Kelly received his bachelor's degree from the State University of New York and his MPA from Baruch College.

On Monday, Sept. 29, AAMVA distributed a matrix that compares the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System (NMVTIS) Proposed Rule with the requirements of the Anti-Car Theft Act, along with AAMVA’s interpretation. This matrix is provided to assist jurisdictions in their evaluation of the impacts and provision of comments to the docket. To further assist the membership, AAMVA has scheduled two regional conference calls.

• Region 1 & 2 – Oct. 7, 2008, 1pm – 4 pm EST
• Region 3 & 4 – Oct. 16, 2008, 1pm – 4 pm EST

For more information on NMVTIS, visit http://www.aamva.org/nmvtis.

In August 2008, AAMVA sent a reminder regarding the second Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) milestone related to data validation and data quality clean-up. Additional data checks are effective March 15, 2009 (details are in the Commercial Driver's License Information System [CDLIS] 4.1.0 Specification, September 2007). To help jurisdictions meet this requirement, AAMVA has scheduled two, one-hour overview sessions to provide details of the second data clean-up milestone and some decisions on correcting historical CDLIS data on the following days:

• Tuesday, Oct. 7, 3:00 pm EDT (webinarID = 439-944-786)
• Thursday, Oct. 9, 11:00 am EDT (webinarID = 906-769-285)
  NOTE:  these webinars will cover the same information – there is no reason to attend both sessions.

Click here for more information about the data check requirement, and instructions on attending the Webinars. If you have immediate questions, please contact the AAMVA Operations Help Desk (phone: 1-888-AAMVA80 [1-888-226-8280], option 3; e-mail: helpdesk@aamva.org).

We have added a new button to the front page of our Web site that points to the high priority issues for the AAMVA community. The button is on the left side of the front page just under the "My AAMVA" log in box:  http://www.aamva.org/. We will add to, or change the topics listed in this box as our priority issues change. Please take a few minutes to review the pages for REAL ID (www.aamva.org/realid) and the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System (www.aamva.org/nmvtis). We welcome your suggestions on how we can enhance these areas.

Ask him what? Anything, he says! AAMVA President and CEO Neil Schuster wants to hear from you, the membership. With over a year at the helm of the AAMVA ship, Schuster's feet are definitely wet. You might even say they're dripping wet with Real ID and the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System (NMVTIS). The point is, he's had an opportunity to get up to speed on most all AAMVA-related issues and he'd like to hear your thought(s) and opinions on the same. So, whether or not you're dripping wet with NMVTIS or Real ID, you can "Ask Neil" anything and he'll answer it here in this forum. Just send him your questions to askneil@aamva.org.

This week AAMVA systems training will be offering the very popular advanced course: 3 Year Calculations of Serious Violations. This course will walk you through a number of scenarios to teach you how to properly determine and apply penalties for second and third serious convictions within 3 years. Also, we will begin the first of two courses on PDPS (Problem Driver Pointer System). If you are involved with Commercial Driver's License Information System (CDLIS) or PDPS in  your jurisdiction, you don’t want to miss these free, live, web-based courses! Register yourself at http://aamva.webroom.com then self-enroll into any of our courses. For questions contact trainer@aamva.org.