49 U.S.C. § 329 — Transportation information

(a) The Secretary of Transportation can collect and organize transportation information that the Secretary decides will help improve the U.S. transportation system. As much as practical, the Secretary must use information that's already available from federal departments, agencies, and other sources. As much as practical, the Secretary must also share the information collected this way with other federal agencies and with the public. (b) The Secretary must: (1) collect and share information on civil aviation that the National Transportation Safety Board doesn't already collect — at minimum, where interstate air passengers start and end their trips, and how many people fly between any two points in interstate air travel. But if the Secretary requires airlines to give flight-specific information, the Secretary can't release fare information for a specific flight to the public for at least 9 months after the flight, and must consider and address airlines' confidentiality concerns — including harm to their competitiveness — before making any rule requiring public release of a flight-specific fare; (2) study ways to grow air commerce and the aviation industry; and (3) share civil aviation information with foreign governments through the appropriate federal channels. (c) (1) If a person, a state, territory, or U.S. possession, or a political subdivision of one asks in writing, the Secretary can: do special statistical studies on foreign and domestic transportation; do special studies on other matters tied to the Secretary's duties; prepare special statistical compilations from Department of Transportation records; and give out copies of studies, tables, and other Department records. (2) Whoever asks for this must pay the actual cost of preparing it. That payment goes into a Treasury account the Secretary manages, and the Secretary can use that money to cover the ordinary costs of gathering and providing the information. (d) To help carry out duties under part A of subtitle VII of this title (the aviation laws), the Secretary must keep separate cooperation agreements with the Secretary of Defense and the head of NASA, so information about their programs, policies, and requirements tied to that part gets shared in a timely way. (e) Incidents and Complaints Involving Passenger and Baggage Security Screening — (1) The Secretary must publish data on security-screening incidents and complaints, in a way comparable to how other consumer complaint and incident data is published. (2) To help do that, the Secretary can ask the Secretary of Homeland Security to periodically report how many security-screening complaints Homeland Security has received.