Congress Passes Government Spending Deal, Prods FMCSA on Improving CSA

The government spending deal negotiated between House Democrats and Senate Republicans does not include language previously passed by the House requiring the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) to republish its CSA scores and alerts, which were removed from public view under the FAST Act. The spending deal would, however, prod the agency on making National Academies of Sciences recommendations on improving the CSA program.

The compromise appropriations package passed by the House and Senate last week directs FMCSA to address the Academies’ recommendations consistent with the September 2019 USDOT Office of the Inspector General report. This report found that FMCSA needed to provide more implementation details on how the agency would improve transparency and how it would assess carrier safety ratings. (FMCSA had previously said that much of the data that would improve CSA is not available, and the agency would not pursue getting it.)

Importantly, FMCSA would have to comply with these recommendations before making the data available to the general public. This is largely consistent with the FAST Act, which ordered FMCSA to take the CSA data down from its publicly available website until the agency completed a comprehensive review of the CSA program and the data that feeds into it, addressed any identified deficiencies in the program, and addressed the issues raised in the 2014 GAO report “Modifying the Compliance, Safety, Accountability Program Would Improve the Ability to Identify High Risk Carriers” (GAO-14-114). That report had recommended that FMCSA revise the Safety Measurement System (SMS) methodology within CSA to better account for limitations in comparing safety performance information across carriers, and revise how it determines a carrier’s fitness to operate to account for limitations in available performance information.

This provision is an improvement over the Transportation-HUD appropriations bill passed by House Democrats last summer. Their bill had required FMCSA to make its CSA data available to the public again within six months. TIA opposed this provision because we believe FMCSA needs to prioritize moving to a data-driven standard that provides a bright-line fitness determination for each carrier; absent such a bright-line standard, the abundance of safety and violation data that was published pre-FAST Act has caused confusion in the industry and with the general public that has made it harder for brokers to select safe carriers and to protect themselves from negligent selection lawsuits even when the carriers have a satisfactory rating.

Other Trucking Provisions in the Transportation-HUD Appropriations Bill

The CSA provision isn’t the only trucking-related provision in the government spending deal. The bill also includes language blocking the Department of Transportation from implementing ELD requirements for commercial motor vehicle operators transporting livestock or insects. It also requires FMCSA to send notices of new entrant safety violations by certified mail or another manner of delivery that records receipt of the notice. Both of these provisions are considered non-controversial.
However, the bill does not include two provisions previously passed by the House which would have blocked FMCSA from implementing a rule eliminating the 30-minute rest break and blocked FMCSA from issuing decisions on petitions to preempt State meal and rest break laws that differ from the federal standards.

Now that the House and Senate have both passed the deal, it heads to the White House for President Trump’s signature. If you have any questions, please contact TIA Advocacy at advocacy@tianet.org or 703.299.5700.