WASHINGTON — While election-year politics may gridlock Congress from passing meaningful truck-related legislation in 2024, the potential for a change in administrations could be a catalyst for finalizing two regulations that have major cost and operational implications for the industry.
Proposed rules to tighten standards for independent contractors and on carbon emissions from heavy trucks — both of which are undergoing final review at the White House — also fit squarely within the administration’s biggest policy priorities: labor and climate.
“We’re likely to see an already slow and increasingly paralyzed Congress slow further as both parties try to prevent the other from notching significant wins,” P. Sean Garney, co-director at Scopelitis Transportation Consulting, which specializes in trucking regulations and legislation, told FreightWaves. “Outside of a few must-pass pieces of legislation, I don’t expect much to get done unless an unexpected crisis emerges.
“Of course, the calculus for the administrative agencies tends to be a bit different. Here, the Biden administration will be looking to accelerate its agenda ahead of the election to show constituents it’s delivering on its promises.”
Randy Mullett, a transportation consultant and principal of Mullett Strategies, concurs that regulation — not legislation — will be the driving force behind trucking policy next year.
“I’m not too worried about legislation, because when Congress comes back from their holiday break they’re going to be focused on things like emergency funding for wars and federal budget extensions,” Mullett told FreightWaves. “And remember, the first presidential primary comes at the end of January.
“But the regulatory agencies are going to be smelling blood in the water, because we may have a change in administration, and if so, they’ll need to get any regulations out sooner rather than later,” Mullett said, to give final rules time to take effect before a new administration can attempt to repeal them.
One of the Biden administration’s agenda items, a new proposed rule addressing the distinction between independent contractors and employees, will “make waves when it’s delivered,” Garney said, given that analysis of the proposal shows it would likely tilt the playing field heavily toward employee status.
The policy change would place a heavier burden on trucking companies that rely on independent contractors to show that their drivers are in fact independent workers and not employees, potentially disrupting relationships that have been mutually beneficial to owner-operators and large carriers.
“Just because an owner-operator has a lease with one carrier for an extended period of time does not mean that they can only work for that carrier, or that they are dependent on that carrier for work,” according to the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, in comments filed on the proposed rule. “Each individual case must be examined in its totality.”
It would also boost employment costs for carriers that choose to convert contractors to employee drivers.
Also anticipated to boost trucking costs is the Environmental Protection Agency’s new emission standards for heavy-duty trucks beginning in model year 2027 and extending to 2032. The new standards, which would rely heavily on a switch to electric vehicles, add roughly $15,000 to the cost of a new sleeper cab, according to EPA estimates.
EPA’s proposal went through a public comment period in 2023 and is scheduled for a final rule in March.
Truck parking, broker transparency prominent in 2023
Concerns over trucking costs in 2024 follow a year in which two other issues — truck parking and broker transparency — received a significant amount of attention.
Record amounts of federal funding were allocated to address a truck parking shortage that most government officials now consider to be at crisis levels.
At an event in September announcing the award of grant money for truck parking expansion in South Dakota, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg recognized OOIDA and the American Trucking Associations for calling attention to the issue in a joint letter he received in 2022 from the two organizations.
“We took that very seriously — which is part of why, in the year and a half since then, we have stepped up our work on the Truck Parking Coalition, and our efforts to encourage states and other decision-makers to make better use of infrastructure dollars to expand parking,” Buttigieg said. “So, know that you will continue to have a partner in the U.S. Department of Transportation.”
Legislation that would set aside $755 million in grants specifically for truck parking is currently pending in the U.S. House and Senate.
While the lack of available truck parking has been a top five “critical issue” identified by the American Transportation Research Institute since 2015, it reached ATRI’s highest ranking this year as the No. 2 concern by the industry, behind the economy.
For small business truckers, the decision by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to delay action on broker transparency may have been their biggest frustration in 2023. Petitions were filed in May 2020 by OOIDA and the Small Business in Trucking Coalition pushing FMCSA to crack down on alleged price gouging by fraudulent brokers.
“FMCSA knows all about the fraud that’s going on, and we were told early in the year that there would be a rulemaking by June” of this year, OOIDA Vice President Lewie Pugh told FreightWaves. “Then they come out with a regulatory agenda that pushes it back to October of 2024. They’ve had our petition for more than three years, but they keep kicking this down the road while we keep getting ripped off.”
Action on safety-specific initiatives in 2024
From a safety perspective, the biggest issue affecting trucking likely will not be tied to a specific rulemaking, according to Garney. “Specifically, the industry is awaiting FMCSA’s final decision on how the CSA [Compliance, Safety, Accountability] Safety Measurement System will be improved,” he said.
“As a part of that, expected updates to FMCSA’s DataQ’s system and the Crash Preventability Determination program will have big positive impacts on motor carriers and is part of a wider strategy to improve law enforcement targeting and data quality.”
He added that FMCSA and its state partners will begin testing its Level 8 commercial vehicle inspections, which will be done electronically while vehicles are at highway speed with no direct interaction with an enforcement officer.
Such a step-up in how vehicles are inspected for safety “could dramatically change the way we interact with roadside enforcement in the future,” Garney believes.
Other safety-related rulemakings scheduled to roll out in 2024 include speed limiters for heavy trucks, automatic emergency braking and oversight of automated driving systems.
In addition, guidelines on the use of hair to test for drugs, which has been under review at the White House for much of 2023, could finally be published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 2024.
“Even if HHS finalizes it in 2024, DOT will still need to incorporate the HHS standard into the DOT drug testing rules that would allow industry to use hair as an alternative sample to urine or oral fluids, which could take another year,” Garney said.
AH
Electric trucks are a bad joke.
Dale Davis
Trucking has changed so much from the time I started. But one thing has never changed and that is the law makers do not or DOT do not tell the shipper his responsibility or mandate how he conducts buisness with a truck in any fashion. Always the trucker never do you put regulations on shippers and receivers. Plus you do not follow up on brokers who are double and triple brokering loads. The government is constantly adding more rules to trucking . That’s why your short of drivers. When start regulate shippers, receivers,police ,medical, even congress then maybe these rules you come up with would be fair. You don’t have a clue what it takes for a trucker to serve you people. Trucks move AMERICA WHEN YOU FINALLY STOP THE MOVEMENT JUST LIKE CALIFORNIA WHERE WILL YOU GET ANYTHING! a drone a robot. Wake up ever since deregulation this country spit on the trucking industry. Worry about your air you breath. Better Worry about your next meal. Look at what you have anything in your possession came from one of my BROTHER TRUCKERS. TRUCKERS ARE THE HEARTBEAT OF AMERICA. WHY KEEP BEATING SOMEONE THAT SEVES YOU?
Ken Brodeur
Here is some suggestions for a sane free and fair market. Eliminate the HOS, then the Electronic Leash Device will become a REAL log book as a true journal of work activity. This will not likely happen as monopoly laws are weak at best and NEVER enforced. Golden rule applies, ‘he who has the gold rules’. Also, HOS will not be repealed because it would tend to reflect the actual time working. Most over-the-road truckers give as little a minute or less On Duty Time waiting at a dock or shipper, etc as the hours are needed for driving to make a meager paycheck, especially for owner/operators. So the only relevant measure is driving time and if the actual hours of work were reflected the average OTR trucker would be making just a few dollars an hour, like around $3 to $4.
According to your article, 35000 trucking companies went out-of-business in 2022 and many more since. Overwhelmingly small one or two truck operations.
Two, Brokers should be held to the same standard as the Real Estate Industry, TOTAL shipping costs should appear on all parties bills and bills of lading. I know for a fact that Brokers will attempt to gain 40% of the total shipping cost leaving the carrier with 60% and that is akin to usury. Total cost, Carrier cost and Broker cost should be listed. Also, Carriers should be allowed to negotiate with the shippers EVEN AFTER getting a Broker assigned load, this would immensely level the playing field and hold Brokers to a higher statndard. Many of the large brokers are grossly incompetent as the job they do must be corrected by the carrier all too often.
Parking, here is a opportunity to reignite small biz in the US, combine regenerative farming/restaurants with truck parking. Used to be an unofficial rule that you followed the trucker to the good eateries, not anymore. There are very few good quality reataurants to be found on the road. Healthy, organic, well fed truckers would not only decrease costs in medical expenses but locals would benefit too as good food and a healthy peoples will arise from such policies.
This could also expand into ‘food deserts’ in inner cities. Neither an army or a Nation can march on a empty stomach, but it must be food not industrial waste we consume.
And finally, close the border. Law breakers pour into this country without an infrastructure to support the influx or a proper legal means of entry. Flooding the labor pool with people unknowing the American culture , poorly educated and impoverished are likely to break the law at least unknowingly and displacing citizens from decent work. Michael Yon will let you in on the invasion and it’s likely plan.
Good Generals know that logistics, more than battles, win the war and the logistics in the US is badly needing repair.
Adam w
These are very important topics when I talk with other drivers about these issues they have no idea that the government is making every day decisions that will affect their jobs for years to come , we need to educate the drivers so we can have more influence in these laws , and less desk flying bureaucrats that have never driven outlook pass in January, deciding how my truck drives up or down it .the government can only go so far before people get tired of micromanaging their lives .