Senate Panel to Vote on FMCSA Nominee Ray Martinez
The Senate Commerce Committee has scheduled a Nov. 8 hearing to consider the nomination of Ray Martinez as the country’s top trucking regulator.
The hearing will come a week after Martinez, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, told the Commerce panel he would follow through on a Dec. 18 mandate on electronic logging devices for truckers.
He also said he would examine the ongoing reforms to a safety performance scoring program for carriers. Transportation policymakers on Capitol Hill will review the recommended changes to the scoring program, titled Compliance, Safety, Accountability.
To that point, Martinez told senators that data analytics could be used to enhance safety.
“We have to be a data-driven organization,” he said on Oct. 31. “We rely on 13,000 partners in the state level who are also stretched. We have to be focused in our efforts and we need data to do that; appropriate data to do that.”
Martinez, chief administrator of the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission, will succeed former deputy administrator Daphne Jefferson, if confirmed. Jefferson served as FMCSA acting administrator until her retirement Nov. 3.
