Letter: Highway Bill
This Letter to the Editor appears in the March 26 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.
Senate Highway Bill
Hidden deep within the massive Senate Transportation Bill, No. 1813, on pages 1283-1284, is a provision that will make owners and directors of corporations personally liable for civil penalties if the bill, which has passed the Senate and is headed for the House, becomes law.
Jim Sanders of the Transportation Brokers Service Association has pointed out to us at the Association of Independent Property Brokers & Agents that the sanctions established through Section 32920 of the Senate Transportation Bill — as amended by the Reid amendment, No. 1761 — identified as “unlawful brokerage activities,” would effectively repeal more than 200 years of basic corporation law.
Specifically, subsection (c) of said section extends “the liability for civil penalties” thereunder “jointly and severally,” even “to the individual officers, directors, and principals of such [responsible corporate] entities.”
What that would mean, of course, is that a member of the board of directors of a large motor carrier or ocean freight forwarder licensed by the Federal Maritime Commission that does not hold a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration property brokerage license could be held personally liable for civil penalties because of the inadvertent actions of some low-level clerical employee who might arrange to hire a motor carrier for a movement entailing transportation beyond an unregulated commercial zone.
Since American Trucking Associations has endorsed this legislation, we felt compelled to write to Transport Topics in order to bring this language crafted by the Transportation Intermediaries Association to ATA’s attention, insofar as this is obviously not in the best interests of ATA member motor carriers. Perhaps ATA should reconsider its position in favor of this proposed legislation at this, the 11th hour.
James Lamb
President
Association of Independent Property Brokers & Agents
Morristown, N.J.
Editor’s Note: American Trucking Associations, Arlington, Va., owns Transport Topics Publishing Group, which produces this newspaper.
