John Hickenlooper Calls For National Standard On Driving Under Influence Of Marijuana

Forbes Breaking News

At a Senate Commerce Committee hearing before the Congressional recess, Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) proposed updates on impaired driving regulations as statistics indicate a growing preference for smoking over drinking.

Transcript

00:00I want to thank Senator Moreno for his impassioned and very well informed

00:04questioning and just point out for the record that I fully agree we need lower

00:09cost cars and one of the keys is never ever ever get the under coating on the

00:15car the answer to that is no and and with that I recognize that also that also

00:20went out that also went out in the 70s uh-huh

00:25Senator Hickenlooper thank you mr. chair I thank all three of you for taking your

00:31time out today let me start with mr. Morrison impaired driving is a threat to

00:37passengers cyclists pedestrians everybody last year the US saw almost

00:4340,000 fatalities involving motor vehicles 12,429 fatalities involved

00:49alcohol impaired driving that's 30 percent of all fatalities we have a

00:55national blood alcohol concentration BAC a national limit of 0.08 percent to

01:02determine alcohol impairment currently there is no uniform national standard to

01:07measure marijuana impairment in Colorado marijuana impaired driving is a blood

01:11test above five nanograms of THC at least 16 other states have zero tolerance laws

01:18prohibiting any amount of drug impairment while driving creating a national

01:22standard for marijuana impairment is going to ease the burden of law enforcement

01:29prosecutions help clarify legal requirements across states and without

01:34question save countless lives so mr. Morrison what steps would you direct

01:40NHTSA to take its consultation in consultation with states our laboratories of

01:45democracy to develop a national impairment standard for marijuana impaired driving I

01:50think you know NHTSA absolutely plays a critical role here during my time as

01:56chief counsel in the first term we were really pushing hard this campaign against

02:00drug impaired driving some of the the messaging we put out you know drive high

02:04get a DUI if if you feel different you drive different I think there isn't this

02:09necessarily public consciousness that when people are using marijuana that it has an

02:14impairing effect on their ability to drive a vehicle and it harkens back to the 50s

02:19to be able to get research people would would say it was pretty common for them to say you

02:23know I need another martini so I can calm down I drive better when it when I'm

02:27impaired I think we haven't had that you know there's absolutely been a shift in

02:32perception there although impaired driving drunk alcohol impaired driving is too high we

02:36haven't seen that similar shift for marijuana it's absolutely something that I

02:40would intend to double down on I would also look to partner with I think the

02:44national opposite the office of national drug control policy to work with them on

02:49that as well as well as law enforcement in the states yeah

02:52absolutely I think it's one of those lurking giants that's that's out there and

02:57the country has not gotten their arms around the fact that more and more kids are

03:00are smoking pot instead of drinking you can see alcohol sales beer sales down all over the

03:05country and yet we have no national program to really inter intercede and make sure they understand that that they're not driving

03:12better right and the poly use is another issue there's compounding factors of

03:17alcohol use with drug use that also need to be recognized I do understand there are

03:20some scientific challenges to really gaining that notion of whether or not

03:26there's a threshold level looks like it's like alcohol it's different sized

03:30people that there's some variation there but the science is getting there and

03:35and certainly the level of impairment can clearly be measured and collect

03:40calculated against the consumption of narcotic absolutely and it's it's an area

03:46where I know you've been a national leader I appreciate that and look we look

03:49forward to working with you you bet mr. Roberti nationwide FIMSA overseas safe

03:55operation of 3 million miles of pipeline 17,000 underground storage tanks more than

04:02160 liquefied natural gas facilities the colonial pipeline ransomware attack was a

04:09stark reminder that of the the vulnerability of critical infrastructure to cyber

04:16attacks FIMSA and pipeline operators rely on information provided by the

04:21Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Administration CISA as well as the

04:27private sector information sharing increases the ability to remain

04:32resilient against emerging cyber threats and less extended by Congress

04:36authorities under the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 is set to

04:41expire on September 30th 3025 so mr. Roberti do you believe any lapse in

04:46authorities to share cyber threat information would increase risk for

04:51pipeline operators and how could FIMSA maintain cyber resilience thank you

04:56senator for the question and and I spoke earlier about the critical

05:01importance of keeping a very focused eye on both physical and cyber security

05:07threats the colonial pipeline a perfect example 45% of the energy needs of the

05:13Northeast come to that pipeline and the interruption of that flow of

05:18commodities was significant the coordination among federal agencies is so

05:26important I can't understate it if you look over the course of the history of this

05:30country the greatest vulnerabilities occurred where security agencies were not sharing

05:36information I do support sharing as I say stated earlier I had worked

05:42previously on agreements with the Department of Homeland Security and

05:47Department of Transportation I believe we need close coordination and

05:51information sharing not just with industry but across the Federal Energy

05:55Regulatory Commission the FBI certainly the Department of Energy and the

06:00Department of Homeland Security I am very committed and very motivated to dig in on

06:06those questions right and see where we are I don't know where we are today but I

06:10know that the threats are there the threat vectors are always changing and I'm

06:14committed to working cooperatively to advance that I'm out of time but I do want to

06:20leave just with Mr. Morrison that the fact that no federal statutes or

06:26regulations that oversee fully autonomous vehicles yet coming out of our

06:30laboratories of democracy that should be I'm going to submit a few questions on

06:33that in the written just because we're out of time now but I think that that's

06:37another big issue that we're going to have to face yield back to the chair

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