WCX: NHTSA Open to Negotiated Rulemaking on Some Safety Issues

April 15, 2026

Sebastian Blanco

NHTSA is ready to make some deals regarding your safety. Peter Simshauser, the organization’s chief counsel, said during SAE International’s WCX 2026 this year that the agency is considering bringing back negotiated rule making, where a small number of automotive companies or other stakeholders can get together to make rules outside of the standard rulemaking procedures outlined in the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).

“We feel confident that there is good space in NHTSA for Negotiated Rulemaking,” Simshauser said. “I can't commit to anything, particularly in front of this large audience, but we are anticipating activity in that regard. NHTSA has not traditionally done negotiated rule makings, but we are looking forward to it in a couple of spaces. It involves identifying a neutral party. Think of somebody like a law professor who's got subject matter expertise, bringing in people from across the stakeholder spectrum, both on the OEM side, on the supplier side, the safety advocate side, and trying to arrive at negotiated standards in a couple of areas that we've identified as ripe for this activity at this time.” Simshauser said tire and lighting standards have “been on the books for decades now and are long overdue for pretty deep overhauls.”

This kind of negotiated rulemaking was allowed under the 1990 Negotiated Rulemaking Act (NRA), with the idea that it was meant to be a supplement – not a substitute – for the notice-and-comment rulemaking procedures outlined in the APA. Congress.gov, the official website for U.S. federal legislative information, explains that the NRA includes a list of several factors an agency head shall take into consideration when determining whether or not to use negotiated rulemaking, “including whether a limited number of interests that will be significantly affected by the rule can be identified, whether a committee with balanced representation could be convened, and whether there is a ‘reasonable likelihood’; that a committee would be able to reach a consensus on the proposed rule within a fixed period of time.”

NHTSA administrator Jonathan Morrison has other plans to “modernize” the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS). “Although many safety requirements previously were essential in an earlier stage of automotive design, a more mechanical, mechanistic-based design phase, they now may not serve a functional safety purpose,” Simshauser said. “Our self-certification regulatory system is based on the policy that the best way to regulate is through performance standards that companies can then decide how best to meet through creative engineering and competition. But unfortunately, many of the standards have been written with test procedures that establish formulaic check-the-box approaches that OEMs and other manufacturers are locked into. So we want to move away from that. … As administrator Morrison explained to an SAE group in January 2026, we want to save lives through a lean, modern regulatory framework that keeps pace with modern and increasingly software-centric vehicles.”

Simshauser said there’s an overall plan behind these changes. “By eliminating outdated requirements embedded in the FMVSS, we hope to allow U.S. manufacturers to establish global dominance in building the most technologically advanced vehicles, including but not limited to automated vehicles, while maintaining the rigorous safety oversight mandated by the Vehicle Safety Act,” he said. “Importantly, modernizing the FMVSS is linked directly to vehicle affordability, which is on the tip of everyone's tongue these days,” by getting rid of “outdated requirements that add mass, cost and complexity to vehicles without providing any significant countervailing safety benefits.”

Automated driving systems (ADS) are one reason NHTSA wants to change the rules.

“We need to move quickly with respect to the regulations as they relate to ADS, because many of the FMVSS requirements were developed decades ago when all vehicles had human drivers and were almost entirely hardware-controlled, and are hardware-specific, rather than performance-based,” Simshauser said, pointing to FMVSS 135, which requires all vehicles to have a brake pedal. “This and similar standards inadvertently block out innovation by requiring hardware that serves no purpose in a vehicle that's controlled by a computer. Our goal is to move towards technology-neutral standards that focus on what the vehicle achieves, for example, stopping distance, rather than how it achieves it, for example, through a manually operated brake pedal or a foot-operated brake pedal.”

Simshauser said NHTSA needs to update its standards to prevent them from becoming unintended barriers to entry. To that end, NHTSA has implemented a new federal automated-driving framework based on three principles: prioritizing safety on our roads, removing regulatory barriers that hinder innovation, and enabling safe, commercial deployments, including purpose-built vehicles without traditional manual controls.

“Teaching software to handle the infinite variables of the open road requires massive data and computing power, and we know that industry needs long-term, durable, regulatory stability, and this is essential for commercial scaling of these technologies,” he said. “Although the agency can grant and we are granting exemptions for innovative designs, companies in this capital-intensive space need certainty and should not have to rely on regulators exercising their discretionary powers.”

Speaking of, NHTSA under President Trump is using its discretionary powers to lower fuel economy standards.

“Many of you know that we are currently in the process of resetting the fuel economy standards for passenger vehicles and light-duty trucks, and you know we're also looking forward, eventually, to activity with the bigger vehicles as well,” Simshauser said. “Our position on the fuel economy standards is clear. NHTSA standards should not be used as a tool to mandate the electrification of the American vehicle fleet. It was used that way previously. That is inconsistent with how Congress wrote the statutes that govern fuel economy, which dictate that electric vehicles and other non-petroleum-based fuels not be considered when setting those fuel standards. They were designed to cover internal combustion engine-based vehicles, and we are returning them to the original intent.”

Simshauser said lowering MPG rules will “save the American people roughly $109 billion over the next five years, and save families $1,000 or more on the average cost of a new vehicle. It would save 1,500 lives and prevent almost a quarter of a million serious injuries through 2050.”

One factor of this is NHTSA’s plan to reclassify crossovers and small SUVs as passenger automobiles instead of light trucks. This will remove a “market distortion,” Simshauser said and “give manufacturers the freedom to make the vehicles that the public actually wants. We believe that consumers and not the government should decide which powertrains succeed. I want to be clear, we have nothing against EVs. Anybody who wants to buy an EV and in a market that is not a subsidized market, please, please go for it.” Simshauser did not bring up the government’s petroleum subsidies.