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Statement by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Regarding Agreement on Global Technical Regulations

24 March 1998

Statement by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Regarding Agreement on Global Technical Regulations

    WASHINGTON, March 24 -- The National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency today announced that
negotiators for the United States, Japan and the European Community have
reached accord on the text of an agreement that will provide a global means
for governments to develop and harmonize regulations regarding the performance
and design of motor vehicles.
    The agreement, reached in Geneva, Switzerland, on March 12, establishes a
process to continuously improve safety, environmental protection systems,
energy efficiency and anti-theft performance of vehicles and related
components and equipment through globally uniform governmental technical
regulations. The agreement, to be known as the Agreement on Global Technical
Regulations, ensures that regulatory activities will be carried out in an open
manner and will give objective considerations to best available technology,
related public benefits and cost effectiveness.
    This Agreement on Global Technical Regulations, which will be established
under the auspices of the United Nations' Economic Commission for Europe's
Working Party on the Construction of Vehicles (UN/ECE/WP.29), has been under
development for the past 18 months.
    In a joint statement in Geneva, the three negotiating parties stated:
"This Agreement on Global Technical Regulations offers an unprecedented
opportunity for the cooperative development of environmental and safety
regulations that will serve and protect our respective citizens and
environment while providing a predictable regulatory framework for a global
automotive industry."
    The negotiators emphasized that the draft agreement accommodates several
very different regulatory development systems and is built upon numerous
multinational suggestions and comments from prior sessions of WP.29.
    The text is being made available by the Secretariat of WP.29 for a final
round of review, comments and negotiations by all interested governments.
Written comments will be accepted by the Secretariat through April 30, 1998,
for translation and distribution before the June 1998 meeting of WP.29.  In
addition, all governments participating in WP.29 retain the right to make
further comments up to and during the time of the June meeting. The intent is
to complete a final text by June 25, 1998, and open the agreement for
signature at that time.
    The document will be available on the Internet at
http://www.itu.ch/itudoc/un/editrans/wp29.html

SOURCE  U.S. Department of Transportation