House Republican Bob Latta of Ohio reintroduced legislation this week for the SELF DRIVE Act, a bill that would set standards for the safety and security of autonomous vehicles.
Although the U.S. is less than two months away from the national election, Latta told Cheddar it is important to push this forward. "Every day we wait, we're losing time. Lives are at stake," he said
"One of the things we've seen in this country unfortunately, traffic accidents are going up, and deaths," he added. "We want to get these things down because it's horrible to lose these lives out on the highways."
Still, Latta will need to wait for approval from both the House and the Senate. In 2017, the SELF DRIVE Act passed the House unanimously, but faded in the Senate after disputes over certain provisions. One of the adjustments in the new version of the bill addresses the language that makes self-driving car standards more inclusive for those with disabilities.
"We also want to make sure that senior citizens and individuals with disabilities have access and they can get around. And especially what we saw with COVID-19, that a lot of people's access and mobility was really restricted," Latta said.
Latta, in discussing the importance of this bill, stressed two things. The first was the standardization for testing nationwide.
"We can't have 50 states and the District of Columbia out there creating standards for self-drive. We've got to have a national standard," he said.
Part of Latta's envisioned standardization measures includes cybersecurity and making sure this technology doesn't fall into the wrong hands. To this point, Latta was not shy to point the finger at the United States' chief economic rival at a time when tensions between the two countries continue to escalate.
"You don't want to give your technology away to someone that you might have an issue with in the future. And we know that the Chinese have stolen, and steal, U.S. technology, and we want to make sure that it's protected."
If the bill is passed, self-driving cars won't be taking to the roads right away. "We want to make sure that the testing is there. One of the things we said was we wanted to make sure these vehicles were as safe or safer than anything else on the road today." However, Latta also says this is an opportunity the U.S. must seize.
"We don't want to take a literal backseat to the rest of the world. We want to be the one in the driver's seat — the United States and this technology."
The Social Security Administration’s acting commissioner has stepped down from her role at the agency over Department of Government Efficiency requests.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum says her government is not ruling out filing a civil lawsuit against Google if it maintains its stance of calling the stretch of sea between northeastern Mexico and the southeastern United States the “Gulf of America.” Sheinbaum, in her morning press conference on Thursday, said the president’s decree to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico is restricted to the “continental shelf of the United States” because Mexico still controls much of the body of water. “We have sovereignty over our continental shelf,” she said.
U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum “will not go unanswered,” European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen vowed on Tuesday, adding that they will trigger toug
President Donald Trump is hitting foreign steel and aluminum with a 25% tax. If that sounds familiar, it’s because he did pretty much the same thing during
President Donald Trump has ordered the U.S. to stop minting pennies. His surprise announcement comes after decades of unsuccessful efforts to phase out the 1-cent coin. Advocates for ditching the penny cite its high production cost and limited utility. Fans of the penny cite its usefulness in charity drives and relative bargain in production costs compared with the nickel. Here's a look at some question surrounding Trump's order.
The Trump administration has ordered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to stop nearly all its work, effectively shutting down the agency that was created to protect consumers after the 2008 financial crisis and subprime mortgage-lending scandal. Russell Vought is the newly installed director of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought directed the CFPB in a Saturday night email to stop work on proposed rules, to suspend the effective dates on any rules that were finalized but not yet effective, and to stop investigative work and not begin any new investigations. The agency has been a target of conservatives since President Barack Obama created it following the 2007-2008 financial crisis.
Brian Bennett, Senior White House correspondent at TIME, discusses Musk's relationship to Donald Trump and how he has such access in the federal government.
