Last January, President Trump signed Executive Order 13771 (“Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs”). In order to comply with the order, which would eliminate two “burdensome regulations” for every one new regulatory action, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA)’s Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee (MCSAC) presented a PowerPoint containing a list of a dozen rules that they suggest can be considered for elimination. These include:
*Regulations left behind by the Interstate Commerce Commission, which was dissolved in 1996
*The Motor Carrier Routing Regulations
*Noise Emission Standards
*Loss and Damage Claims
*Preservation of Records
*The 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. restart provision, part of a driver’s hours-of-service requirements which sparked opposition among drivers and carriers by reducing a driver’s time on the road each week, limiting their income, affecting productivity, and increasing safety concerns by putting drivers on the road during peak hours, leading to congestion on the roads. Congress had suspended such a provision in the 2015 Omnibus Appropriations bill until the FMCSA could conduct further research on the restart rules and their impact.
*No-defect driver vehicle inspection reports
*Separate regulations for the transportation of migrant workers
*States being able to cooperate with the FMCSA on enforcement of safety regulations
*Removal of certain driver requirements such as medical records
*Time card exception
*Agricultural requirements
*Quarterly reports of carriers
While each ruling was originally made with safety in mind, the MCSAC chose the above regulations for consideration due to being outdated, no longer being enforced, or irrelevant due to newer technology such as electronic logging devices.1,2
As FMCSA’s Robert Miller explains, the suggestions do not necessarily mean that all will be removed as an analysis will have to be further conducted, but eliminating unnecessary regulations will “open the door for a number of new regulations.”3
The agency notes that the next steps would be “conducting outreach with additional stakeholders, placing DOT notice seeking public comment in the Federal Register, and FMCSA rulemaking planning.”1
To view the FMCSA’s presentation click here.
2http://www.ttnews.com/articles/basetemplate.aspx?storyid=46345
3http://www.ttnews.com/articles/basetemplate.aspx?storyid=46345&page=2
