Hearing Shines Light on Burden of FMCSA Regulations
House Committee pushes back against FMCSA effort to increase insurance and for unnecessarily complicating Hours of Service rules, while failing to fully address driver issues.
The House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, which is the part of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee with jurisdiction over commercial motor vehicle safety, convened a hearing on federal initiatives and regulations. The hearing testimony from trucking, passenger motor coach, and labor interests discussed high-profile regulatory issues that will likely be addressed in an upcoming Highway bill.
Chairman Sam Graves of Missouri and other committee members raised concerns about the growth of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and the difficulties that new and proposed FMCSA regulation pose for a healthy and competitive transportation industry.
With the exception of the witness representing organized labor, the hearing witnesses echoed calls for FMCSA to remove data from the Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) program from public view. Panelists emphasized that CSA data is fundamentally flawed and inaccurately portrays smaller carriers as unsafe, which limits their ability to compete for business. The efforts of industry to have those scores removed from public view were recently joined by TIA, with the TIA Board of Directors voting in April to endorse this policy.
TIA Government Affairs staff attend Capitol Hill hearings and meetings to increase the profile of your industry on these important issues. For further updates, or to learn more about how to impact Congress on the issues that are important to you, contact either Chris Burroughs (burroughs@tianet.org, 703-299- 5705) or Will Sehestedt (sehestedt@tianet.org, 703-299-5713)
