§1139 Information sharing

Summary

The Secretary must make sure the Department of Transportation is told quickly about any credible terrorist threats to public transportation in the United States. The Secretary must pay reasonable costs for a Public Transportation Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC). Agencies the Secretary finds at high risk must join the ISAC, other agencies should be encouraged to join, nonprofit transit employee unions should be encouraged to join, and there must be no fee to participate. The Comptroller General must report to the appropriate congressional committees at least 3 years after August 3, 2007, on how well the ISAC and other DOT information-sharing programs work. The report must review user satisfaction, the value to users, costs and benefits, coordination among programs, how they help carry out the information-sharing plan under section 1203, and whether the ISAC duplicates DOT efforts. Congress authorized $600,000 for each of fiscal years 2008, 2009, and 2010, and whatever is needed for 2011 if the report has been submitted; those funds remain available until spent.