ATA speaks out in favor of FMCSA expansion to regulate shippers and brokers   

It is very disappointing to see the American Trucking Associations (ATA) speak out in favor of greater regulatory power for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. In the ATA's official response to the FMCSA 5-year plan, the ATA commended the FMCSA for acknowledging that "The greatest potential for creating the safest CMV industry lies in focusing outreach, oversight, and enforcement resources on the entire CMV transportation life-cycle." In case you lack the decoder ring to decipher the ATA's message, the FMCSA is seeking to regulate both shippers and brokers, and the ATA appears to be in favor of expanding the government's regulatory and bureaucratic reach. The release notes that the ATA is "likely to support FMCSA's future efforts to obtain this authority to enforce against other entities …"

The proposed expansion of FMCSA's oversight to cover shippers and brokers is not only ill-defined in the 5-year plan, but is unauthorized under current law. The Agency's goal of establishing "strong enforcement strategies and sanctions" extending even to shippers and brokers suggests that the Agency thinks vicarious liability is a good thing and should be imposed on shippers and brokers by regulation. The FMCSA should concentrate its limited resources on improving the effectiveness and fairness of the motor carrier safety oversight it is currently authorized to exercise.

I was fortunate to come into the transportation industry in 1980, the year the motor carrier industry broke free of the shackles of over-burdensome government regulation. The ensuing decades saw tremendous innovations in equipment, intermodal services, and operating strategies. Great and highly profitable companies emerged and thrived under free enterprise. Productivity gains kept costs low while competition resulted in tremendous improvements in service levels. All the while, highway safety improved at a tremendous rate thanks to the hard efforts of the trucking industry.

In a time where our country is debating the merits of big government solutions versus the free enterprise system that made our country great, it is disheartening in our own industry to hear participants clamoring for increased government regulation.