Interpretation ID: nht68-1.49

DATE: 02/12/68

FROM: AUTHOR UNAVAILABLE; William Haddon Jr. M.D.; NHTSA

TO: Warren G. Magnuson; House of Representatives

TITLE: FMVSR INTERPRETATION

TEXT: This is in response to your letter to January 2 enclosing correspondence from your constituent, William Dixon of Beattle.

Mr. Dixon opposes the regulations, then proposed and now adopted, issued jointly by the Department of Transportation and the Department of the Treasury which govern the importation of motor vehicles subject to the Federal motor vehicle safety standards.

These regulations implement section 108(b)(3) of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 which states that a motor vehicle manufactured after December 31, 1967, which does not conform to applicable standards:

". . . shall be refused admission into the United States under joint regulations issued by the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary, except that the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary may, by such regulations provide for authorizing the importation of such motor vehicle . . . upon such terms and conditions (including the furnishing of a bond) as may appear to them appropriate to insure that any such motor vehicle . . . will be brought into conformity with any applicable Federal motor vehicle safety standard prescribed under this title, or will be exported or abandoned to the United States."

As to Mr. Dixon's reference to limited production" automobiles, S. 2029, passed by the Senate in November and pending in the House, is a bill which, if enacted, would provide a procedure by which manufacturers (foreign as well as domestic) of 500 or less motor vehicles per year could apply for relief from compliance with such standards as cause it substantial economic hardship.