October 8, 2008 10:15 AM, EDT

FMCSA Sends Rules on Chassis, New Carriers to White House

Publication of Regulations Expected by Year’s End

By Sean McNally, Senior Reporter

This story appears in the Oct. 6 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration sent regulations aimed at strengthening oversight of new trucking companies and of intermodal chassis equipment to the White House for review, putting the regulations on pace to be published before the end of the year.

However, regulations to revise the embattled hours-of-service rule and require the use of electronic onboard recorders continued to languish at the agency.

The intermodal roadability rule, which would assign responsibility for chassis maintenance to the owner rather than the user of the equipment, was ordered by the 2005 highway funding law.

The rule initially had been scheduled to be published in April, but “unanticipated issues” and “other higher priorities” pushed the date back, DOT said.

The new-entrant rule, which also has suffered delays, would beef-up FMCSA’s enforcement program for new trucking companies by requiring audits within 18 months of a company’s receiving operating authority. It would focus on 11 specific violations, including alcohol and drug testing of drivers, vehicle maintenance issues and driver qualification issues.

According the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, the new-carrier and intermodal roadability rules were sent by the Department of Transportation to the review agency on Sept. 25.

Typically, OMB reviews proposed or final regulations before agencies publish them in the Federal Register, generally for a period of about 90 days.

The review period for the two final rules would allow them to be published before the end of 2008 — which is in line with a schedule DOT puts out each month, as well as previous statements by Administrator John Hill, who has told Transport Topics he hopes to have both rules published before the end of the year.

Observers said they believed the two rules would eventually finish OMB review and get published before the end of 2008, but they were less sanguine about the chances for other regulations.

“I think the roadability one will get out, and I think the new-entrant one will get out,” said Steve Keppler, director of policy and programs for the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance. “I do think that EOBR will get out, but I don’t know about hours of service, though I’d like to think that that will get out.”

Time is running short, Keppler said. “I’ve got to believe that, if it doesn’t happen in the next week, the next two weeks at most, then its chances of getting out are slim,” he said. “A lot of it hinges on what the content of the rule is, how much controversy it may present, especially in these economic times, and the substantialness of these rules. That’s the wild card.”

A spokeswoman for FMCSA said both the hours-of-service rule and the EOBR regulation were “under departmental review, and we anticipate that they will be sent to OMB sometime soon.”