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04/02/07 The 2007 FMCSA Rulemaking Agenda
An interesting meeting involving a number of federal agencies including the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) recently took place at, of all places, the Swedish embassy in Washington D.C. The embassy was host to a global traffic safety seminar entitled “The Safe Way Home.” Participants included representatives from U.S. and Swedish traffic safety agencies as well as researchers and industry experts.
The conference focused on varying approaches to reducing traffic fatalities and injuries. Sweden hosted the conference because of its aggressive approach to traffic safety. As noted by the embassy on its website: “Sweden ranks near the top among countries with the lowest number of traffic fatalities in relation to the population. A Swedish initiative called "Vision Zero" is in place with the goal of reducing traffic deaths to zero. In collaboration with Swedish road authorities and carmakers, this project has already resulted in improved road systems and safer vehicles.”
During the seminar FMSCA outlined an ambitious regulatory agenda for 2007 that contained multiple initiatives and proposals focused on the trucking industry and commercial motor vehicle drivers. Larry W. Minor, the FMCSA Director of the Office of Bus and Truck Standards and Operations gave a presentation that detailed FMCSAs plans.
“We’re trying to take a much more comprehensive approach to improving safety in the trucking industry now. We’re taking a fresh look at ways we can look at more companies and aspects of trucking to improve safety,” said Minor. In his presentation, Minor outlined a number of new notices of proposed rulemakings, (NPRMs) that the agency would be making throughout 2007. Among them:
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Creating a new, national set of standards for the issuance of commercial driver’s license (CDL) learner’s permits.
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Allowing FMSCA to revoke the operating authority of a motor carrier for a pattern of repeated safety violations.
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Creation of a national registry of certified medical examiners.
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Permitting FMSCA to take direct enforcement action against trucking company officers that knowingly engage in and/or cover up safety violations.
Some of these proposed rules are new, while others have been on FMSCAs radar for a while. For example both the idea of a national CDL learner’s permit and the certified medical examiners registry have been the subject of ongoing discussion between the agency and stakeholders within the trucking community for sometime. The DOTs “Report on Significant Rulemakings” web page (http://regs.dot.gov/rulemakings) gives the status and abstracts for both these proposals. From the March 2007 listings:
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Item 43 – “This rulemaking would establish training, testing and certification standards for medical examiners responsible for certifying that interstate commercial motor vehicle drivers meet established physical qualifications standards.” It would also; “provide a database (or National Registry) of medical examiners that meet the prescribed standards for use by motor carriers, drivers, and Federal and State enforcement personnel.” In addition the proposed rule would; “require medical examiners to transmit electronically to FMCSA the name of drivers and a numerical identifier for each driver that is examined.” Only examiners listed on the registry would be allowed to conduct the required DOT driver medical exams.
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Item 46 – Commercial Learner’s Permits – “This rulemaking would…establish new minimum Federal standards for States to issue commercial learner's permits (CLPs) based in part on the requirements of section 4122 of SAFETEA-LU. In addition…this rule would establish the minimum information that must be on the CLP document and the electronic driver's record.”
The enforcement and operating authority sanctions provisions have been on FMCSAs “wish list” for some time. Last year when John Hill took the reins at FMSCA he cited the importance of these two enforcement provisions that were mandated by the 2005 Highway Bill. “These rules will tighten our ability to track these bad actors that come in and out of the business all of the time…and those are the ones we’re going to go after,” said Hill in an October 2006 interview.
In his presentation at the Swedish Embassy, Director Minor noted the administration’s plan to move forward with the two new enforcement provisions this year. “We want to be able to take action against company officers and managers if they are involved in safety violations. That includes prohibiting them from ever working in the trucking industry again,” said Minor. “We also want to be able to revoke a trucking company’s operating authority on safety violations alone.”
During the conference, Minor also discussed other areas of interest to FMCSA. Among these were the CSA 2010 (Comprehensive Safety Analysis) program, plans to merge the Medical Certification with the CDL Issuance and Renewal Processes, and the expansion of the TACT (Ticketing Aggressive Cars and Trucks) program.
Foley Services has already covered FMCSAs CSA 2010 plans, see “FMCSA Plans for 2010” at (http://www.foleyservices.com/t-11_03_2006.aspx). In future articles we will cover both the TACT program and the plan to merge the CDL and driver’s medical certification into a single document. | 
