Regulations

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has issued a notice of intent to solicit comments that the agency will use to inform a supplementary notice of proposed rulemaking (SNPRM), which will include a proposal to amend the regulations and set a speed limit. It would affect trucks weighing more than 26,001 pounds.

The federal government is looking into speeding up the process in which Commercial Driver’s Licenses (CDLs) are issued. At the same time, the federal government ruled against revisions to the hours-of-service (HOS) requirements, citing that safety groups gave no basis for changes that would have provided more flexibility to drivers.

Economic recovery and pandemic relief upstage harsher rules on truckers, as the overall industry applauds productivity goals. In the meantime, big environmental rules loom at EPA, while one large TL carrier wants to speed up the process to obtain a Commercial Driver’s License.

The nation’s top trucking regulator-to-be told lawmakers she is committed to taking concrete steps to reduce deaths and injuries from large-truck crashes. Meeri Joshi said the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is investigating how to strengthen its new entrant program and expand the scope of motor carrier investigations to target more at-risk behavior by the nation’s 3.5 million long-haul truckers.

Global airlines are scrambling to meet the gap between cargo demand and available lift by all means possible.

The owner-operator business model in trucking, an essential part of the industry that uses upwards of 1 million independent contractors at any given time, is under attack in California and the U.S. Congress in Washington.

Late last month, Brandon Fried, Executive Director of the Washington, D.C.-based Airforwarders Association (AfA), a diverse coalition comprised of more than 275 companies with more than 500,000 employees focused on moving cargo efficiently and quickly throughout the supply chain, penned a letter to President Joe Biden. In the letter, Fried addressed, on behalf of AfA membership, that the White House consider various priorities, as agencies within the new administration set their legislative agenda for the coming years.

Logistics Management Group News Editor recently spoke with Doug Waggoner, CEO of Chicago-based Echo Global Logistics about various topics, including: capacity and rates, Peak Season, the election, and logistics technology, among others.

The Surface Transportation Board (STB), an independent adjudicatory and economic-regulatory agency charged by Congress with resolving railroad rate and service disputes and reviewing proposed railroad mergers, received some good news, when the United States Senate confirmed Michelle A. Schultz and Robert Primus to serve as STB Board members.

While the Trump administration has ushered in a more relaxed regulatory atmosphere, the trucking industry understands that can quickly flip if power in the White House and Congress change hands.

The current regulatory philosophy is to be “hands off” on market entry and pricing.

The latest tweaks to the 83-year-old truck driver hours of service regulations went into effect Sept. 29 as the Transportation Department’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) attempts to build in flexibility to a monolithic regulation covering some 3.5 million long-haul truckers.

STB officials said that the objective of this rule is to “establish a streamlined approach for pleading market dominance in rate reasonableness proceedings,” adding that “The final rule provides an option for simplifying the market dominance inquiry, which otherwise can be costly and time-consuming, especially in smaller cases.

FMCSA officials said that the agency is continuing the extension, due to the fact that the national emergency declaration remains in place, adding that a continued exemption is needed to support direct emergency assistance for some supply chains.