Short answer: It’s complicated (sort of a non-answer, I know — sorry).
Long answer: As reported previously, the ad hoc coalition of motor carrier groups that successfully challenged the highway bill poison pill is also working on Congress to take seriously what it believes is the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s violation of other highway bill provisions relative to CSA reform.
The FAST Act highway bill, the coalition essentially argued, prohibited the agency from issuing any major rule proposal related to the CSA program before the report on the potential revamp of the CSA Safety Measurement System (and corrective action plan) the bill also required. The coalition outlined three components of the FAST Act it believed the FMCSA was about to violate, which you can see via the above link.
FMCSA declined to comment when I asked them about the charges, and as expected, a day or two later issued the Safety Fitness Determination Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.
In Acting Administrator Scott Darling’s late January appearance before the Senate Commerce Committee, however (part of his confirmation process to become head of the agency), an exchange between Darling and Senator Deb Fisher (R-Neb.) shows just what the agency is thinking relative to the allegation of a FAST Act violation. The transcript below was included in a new letter from the coalition that reiterates its belief that, despite what Darling says, the highway bill’s CSA provisions have been violated by release of the SFD rule.
Sen. Fischer: It seems like you have been moving forward rather vigorously in the past several weeks to issue some rulemakings on the ELDs and the SFD proposed rule. Why are you moving forward on that rulemaking when we’ve already given you so much to do with the passage of that bipartisan FAST Act, and we really worked together on that – worked very hard to find consensus so that we could see some changes made.
