Cash Market Moves

Secretary of Transportation Sean P. Duffy announced May 29 that 52 deregulatory actions were applied across the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), in an FMCSA press release on their website.

"In total, the deregulatory package will rescind, withdraw, or amend burdensome regulations that do not enhance safety. These actions also help streamline the Code of Federal Regulations by deleting over 73,000 words from the Federal Register," said FMCSA.

"Big government has been a big failure. Under President Trump's leadership, my department is slashing duplicative and outdated regulations that are unnecessarily burdensome, waste taxpayer dollars, and fail to ensure safety," said Duffy. "These are common sense changes that will help us build a more efficient government that better reflects the needs of the American people."

FMCSA added, "These sensible deregulatory actions primarily target redundant and decade-old rules that have no real-life application. This includes cutting duplicative provisions at FHWA for construction contracts and axing an outdated rule under FMCSA which requires a paper copy of an Electronic Logging Device's (ELD) operator's manual even when it can be found online."

Of the 52 deregulatory actions, 43 are at the Notice Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) stage, seven are final rules and two are withdrawals of rulemaking actions. All 52 deregulatory actions will increase efficiencies without compromising safety for the American people. Here is a link to the FMCSA press release listing all the actions being taken by DOT: https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/….

"As the Trump administration launched deregulatory efforts, trucking interests and individual owners and operators earmarked several areas for attention from the FMCSA and other DOT agencies," noted Overdrive in a May 9 story on their website.

The top four areas trucking companies want tackled, according to Overdrive, are:

-- Hours of service (HOS) and the ELD mandate: Most cited by truckers of all stripes as in need of repeal or replacement, largely for HOS with a goal of greater flexibility for recording drive and rest periods.

-- Speed limiters: FMCSA has signaled intent to mandate some use of speed limiters, though Congressional pushback continues in the current session.

-- Broker transparency: Overdrive readers largely support FMCSA's late 2024 proposal to strengthen records-transparency regulations for brokers, yet opinions among brokers and large-fleet interests run counter.

-- Automatic emergency braking (AEB): With multiple DOT agencies at work fulfilling Congressional directive to move to require AEB tech on new commercial trucks, groups representing small fleets and operators argued for withdrawal of a current proposal.

As for the contentious HOS rules, on June 1, 2020, FMCSA revised four provisions of the HOS regulations to "provide greater flexibility for drivers without adversely affecting safety." Since that time, truckers have been opposed to the 14-hour limit and the 30-minute driving break and asked the DOT during the comment period to modify it. The comment period ended May 5, 2025.

Here is a link to a story I wrote about the June 20, 2020, revisions made and the reminder that the compliance date of Sep. 29, 2020, was nearing: https://www.dtnpf.com/….

Mary Kennedy can be reached at mary.kennedy@dtn.com

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