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Joshi leaving FMCSA, heading back to New York

On track for Senate confirmation, deputy administrator instead will become deputy mayor

John Kingston
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Photo: FreightWaves

(Updated with statement from Department of Transportation)

Meera Joshi is not going to be the permanent head of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. 

The acting administrator is going back to the municipal government of New York City. Mayor-elect Eric Adams on Monday announced the appointment of five deputy mayors, all of them females. Joshi is one of the five.

Joshi is currently deputy administrator at FMCSA. In October, the Senate’s Commerce Committee had voted to advance her nomination to become the administrator of FMCSA.


A statement issued by the Department of Transportation said Joshi will remain in her current role for the next month.

Joshi had joined FMCSA after she was nominated to head the trucking regulator by President Biden in April. 

Her earlier role in the New York City administration was with the Taxi & Limousine Commission. She was in that commissioner’s job when she was nominated by Biden to become the head of FMCSA.

There has not been a Senate-approved head of FMCSA since Raymond Martinez resigned in October 2019. He had only had the job for a little more than a year. Since then, a series of interim administrators or deputy administrators, like Joshi, have headed the agency.


The American Trucking Associations’ President Chris Spear issued a rapid statement after the news of Joshi’s departure. 

“Throughout her tenure, the trucking industry has found Deputy Administrator Joshi to be a candid, collaborative and valued partner in government,” Spear said. “Her use of data and stakeholder input drove a sound policy process designed to meet real-world needs. Her leadership has helped to ensure our industry could continue to safely serve the American people and meet the demands of the economy during these incredible times.”

The DOT, in its statement, said Joshi “has engaged with truck drivers and the motor coach industry to chart a clear path for FMCSA to address our supply chain challenges, improve driver safety and job quality, and has built a strong team at FMCSA who will help build on this foundation.”

More articles by John Kingston

4 Comments

  1. Luis Irizarry

    Trucking gets worse every year with new laws that don’t help anyone and only hurt truckers especially small buisness owners were always getting extorted at scales were getting mistreated by customers and other drivers on the road (4wheelers) we are way underpaid for what we do maybe this lady should live in a truck for a couple weeks maybe her point of view will change a little

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John Kingston

John has an almost 40-year career covering commodities, most of the time at S&P Global Platts. He created the Dated Brent benchmark, now the world’s most important crude oil marker. He was Director of Oil, Director of News, the editor in chief of Platts Oilgram News and the “talking head” for Platts on numerous media outlets, including CNBC, Fox Business and Canada’s BNN. He covered metals before joining Platts and then spent a year running Platts’ metals business as well. He was awarded the International Association of Energy Economics Award for Excellence in Written Journalism in 2015. In 2010, he won two Corporate Achievement Awards from McGraw-Hill, an extremely rare accomplishment, one for steering coverage of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster and the other for the launch of a public affairs television show, Platts Energy Week.