Members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation questioned current Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) Deputy Administrator Meera Joshi – President Joe Biden's pick to be the next FMCSA Administrator – on a number of trucking-related topics Wednesday.
A vote was not held Wednesday during the committee hearing. Once a vote is held, if Joshi is confirmed by the committee, she will then need to be confirmed by the full Senate before being named FMCSA Administrator. Joshi was among four DOT nominees at the hearing Wednesday, along with Victoria Marie Baecher Wassmer, nominee for DOT Chief Financial Officer; Mohsin Raza Syed, nominee for DOT's assistant secretary of government affairs; and Amitabha Bose, nominee for Federal Railroad Administrator.
Questions Joshi faced included just how she would handle a number of issues – from supply chain inefficiencies, potential future hours of service waivers, FMCSA’s oversight of new entrant motor carriers, port congestion and more.
Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Nebraska) asked Joshi about the “extreme freight backlog” the U.S. is currently experiencing and whether there are other steps FMCSA can take to keep goods moving.
Joshi mentioned the FMCSA's latest COVID hours of service waiver extension, which requires fleets to report to FMCSA their use of the waiver. She said that requirement will provide more detail to FMCSA about how carriers are using the COVID exemptions, which will allow the agency to determine “whether there are longer term and more narrowly tailored solutions that we can put in place, given the freight constraints our nation is currently experiencing.”
[Related: Could the COVID hours waiver be flexibility advocates' chance to further disentangle HOS rigidity?]
Joshi also responded to questioning from Fischer about the possibility of increased hours flexibility for livestock haulers. Joshi noted she plans to visit a livestock hauling operation to see how the loading and unloading process works, and will consider the challenges of livestock transport with any regulations.
