The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has issued a revised proposal to streamline the agency’s registration process for motor carriers, brokers and freight forwarders — and eventually help the agency identify so-called “chameleon” operators.
The 90-page supplemental proposed rule, announced in October, would add to a 2005 proposal that never went into effect and would combine the Department of Transportation’s identification number system, the single state registration system, and financial responsibility system into a single online federal system.
It would also raise the registration fee to $300 from $200.
The new system, first mandated by Congress in 1995, will “consolidate and simplify” current registration processes and increase public accessibility to data about motor carriers and motor coach companies.
There will be a $300 fee for most new carriers to register, but the system is “separate and apart” from the Unified Carrier Registration program that collects fees from interstate carriers, brokers and freight forwarders to pay for motor carrier enforcement programs, said Bob Pitcher, vice president of state laws for American Trucking Associations.
In a speech last month at American Trucking Associations Management Conference & Exhibition, FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro said the new system will offer the agency better vetting tools to red flag motor carriers that have their operating authority revoked, only to reemerge with a different name.
“We've got to make sure that folks who are operating in the industry are maintaining high standards and stay there,” Ferro told ATA’s safety policy.
