FMCSA Declares NYC’s Truck Sticker Requirement Legal
The federal government has declared that New York City can enforce its requirement that certain trucks display stickers to certify that their owners have paid proper taxes, reversing its previous decision that the sticker requirement violates federal law.
In a Federal Register notice published Tuesday, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration wrote that since the city’s sticker requirement existed before 2006, federal law exempts it from a prohibition on most credentialing requirements for trucks.
Responding to a petition by American Trucking Associations, FMCSA declared in 2010 that the sticker requirement was preempted by federal law and could not be enforced.
The sticker was meant to show that a truck’s owner had paid city taxes specific to trucks that travel more than half of their mileage within the city, the city said.
The city appealed in 2011, asking FMCSA to reconsider based on a provision that exempted credential requirements in place before 2006.
In its Federal Register notice Tuesday, the agency accepted New York’s argument, writing that the requirement had been in place since the 1960s.
