10 U.S.C. § 185 — Joint Safety Council

(a) In General: This section creates a Joint Safety Council inside the Office of the Deputy Secretary of Defense. (b) Membership; Appointment; Compensation: (1) Voting members include: the Director of Safety from each military department; a senior civil-service employee picked by the Deputy Secretary; one member picked by each military department's Secretary; during periods the Coast Guard isn't under the Navy, a Coast Guard officer picked by the Secretary of Homeland Security; and any extra members the Deputy Secretary adds. (2) Each member serves as long as the person who appointed them wants; a vacancy is filled the same way the original member was chosen. (3) Members get no extra pay for serving on the Council. (c) Chairperson and Vice Chairperson: (1) The Secretary of Defense picks a military-member of the Council to chair it, for a two-year term. The Chairperson also acts as the Defense Department's overall Director of Safety, advises the Secretary of Defense on safety policy, oversees the Council's work and safety studies, helps the military branches use standard safety guidance, reports yearly to the Secretary and Congress on how well each branch follows that guidance, advises Congress on safety issues, and coordinates with other agencies like the FAA on aviation safety. (2) The member picked under (b)(1)(B) serves as Vice Chairperson, reporting to the Chairperson and filling in when the Chairperson is absent. (d) Responsibilities: The Council must: (1) issue and update joint safety regulations, including on reporting and investigating accidents ("mishaps"), subject to (e); (2) for accident data — set uniform data standards and a shared database, check that each branch follows those standards, and review the data to find and prioritize safety risks; (3) for other safety data — set standards for collecting aircraft, equipment, and operator data; set standards for ground-vehicle and crew data; and require each branch to track waivers given for pilot or operator qualifications; (4) study civilian and commercial aviation safety practices to see if the military should adopt them; (5) work with the FAA to require each branch to have an aviation safety management system; (6) work with other agencies to require each branch to have a separate safety program for ground vehicles and ships; (7) make sure each branch has, for those systems and programs, both a plan to fix problems and a plan to put the system in place; (8) review each branch's proposed safety systems and programs; (9) review how those systems are actually put in use; (10) make sure each branch tracks whether it follows safety-investigation recommendations; (11) within a year of a branch first identifying fixes for a problem, and periodically after, check that those fixes actually work; and (12) make sure any needed changes in methods or procedures for those fixes are carried out. (e) Oversight: The Deputy Secretary of Defense must review and approve the Council's decisions and recommendations. (f) Staff: (1) The Council can hire staff under the normal federal hiring rules. (2) The Council can accept staff temporarily loaned from within Defense or from other federal agencies, whether or not it pays for them. (g) Contract Authority: The Council can sign contracts for supplies, equipment, and services it needs, if money is available. (h) Procurement of Temporary and Intermittent Services: The Chairperson can hire short-term or occasional help, paying no more per day than the top federal executive pay rate (Level V). (i) Data Collection: (1) The Council can access Defense Department databases it needs to do its job, including data on what causes accidents. (2) The Council can make deals with the FAA, the National Transportation Safety Board, and other agencies to share safety data. (3) Some data the Council collects may be protected safety information that can't be disclosed or used in legal discovery. (j) Meetings: The Council must meet at least every three months, and whenever the Chairperson calls a meeting. (k) Reports: (1) The Chairperson must send Congress' defense committees a report on Council activities twice a year. (2) By December 31 each year, the Deputy Secretary must send Congress an annual report covering: (A) goals for the coming year; (B) an assessment of the Council's past year; and (C) for that year, releasable details on accidents and any fixes made in response to safety report recommendations. (l) Biannual Briefings: By March 31 and December 31 each year, the Chairperson must brief Congress' defense committees on the report required under (k)(1), covering the past six months.