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

The Secretary of Transportation may collect and collate transportation information the Secretary decides will contribute to the improvement of the transportation system of the United States. To the greatest practical extent, the Secretary shall use information available from departments, agencies, and instrumentalities of the United States Government and other sources. To the extent practical, the Secretary shall make available to other Government departments, agencies, and instrumentalities and to the public the information collected under this subsection. shall not disseminate fare information for a specific flight to the general public for a period of at least 9 months following the date of the flight; and shall give due consideration to and address confidentiality concerns of carriers, including competitive implications, in any rulemaking prior to adoption of a rule requiring the dissemination to the general public of any flight-specific fare; study the possibilities of developing air commerce and the aeronautical industry; and exchange information on civil aeronautics with governments of foreign countries through appropriate departments, agencies, and instrumentalities of the Government. make special statistical studies on foreign and domestic transportation; make special studies on other matters related to duties and powers of the Secretary; prepare, from records of the Department of Transportation, special statistical compilations; and provide transcripts of studies, tables, and other records of the Department. The person or governmental authority requesting information under paragraph (1) of this subsection must pay the actual cost of preparing the information. Payments shall be deposited in the Treasury in an account that the Secretary shall administer. The Secretary may use amounts in the account for the ordinary expenses incidental to getting and providing the information. To assist in carrying out duties and powers under part A of subtitle VII of this title, the Secretary of Transportation shall maintain separate cooperative agreements with the Secretary of Defense and the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for the timely exchange of information on their programs, policies, and requirements directly related to carrying out that part. The Secretary of Transportation shall publish data on incidents and complaints involving passenger and baggage security screening in a manner comparable to other consumer complaint and incident data. To assist in the publication of data under paragraph (1), the Secretary of Transportation may request the Secretary of Homeland Security to periodically report on the number of complaints about security screening received by the Secretary of Homeland Security. not later than March 31, 2019 , establish and make publicly available on its website a database of the drug and alcohol testing data reported by employers for each mode of transportation; and update the database annually. the total number of drug and alcohol tests by type of substance tested; the drug and alcohol test results by type of substance tested; the reason for the drug or alcohol test, such as pre-employment, random, post-accident, reasonable suspicion or cause, return-to-duty, or follow-up, by type of substance tested; and the number of individuals who refused testing. The Department of Transportation shall not release any commercially sensitive data or personally identifiable data furnished by an employer under this section unless the data is aggregated or otherwise in a form that does not identify the employer providing the data. Nothing in this section may be construed as limiting or otherwise affecting the requirements of the Secretary of Transportation to adhere to requirements applicable to confidential business information and sensitive security information, consistent with applicable law.”