Broker transparency proposal expected soon

A proposal to improve broker transparency in the trucking industry could be released before the month is over.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Spring 2023 Unified Regulatory Agenda, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration projects to publish in June a notice of proposed rulemaking regarding transparency in property carrier broker transactions.

FMCSA announced a forthcoming proposal earlier this year, but this week’s unveiling of the regulatory agenda is the first time the agency has provided a target date.

The proposal was prompted by a May 2020 petition from the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association that asked the agency to begin the rulemaking process for more transparency in trucking transactions with brokers.

OOIDA’s petition asked the agency:

• To require brokers to automatically provide an electronic copy of each transaction record within 48 hours after the contractual service has been completed.
• To explicitly prohibit brokers from including any provision that requires a carrier to waive their rights to access the transaction records.

Regulation CFR 371.3 already requires that brokers keep records of each transaction with a carrier and that each party to the transaction has a right to view these records. OOIDA asked the agency to begin enforcing that regulation and to eliminate any loopholes that allowed brokers to sidestep the rule. The Small Business in Transportation Coalition also petitioned the agency.

OOIDA Executive Vice President Lewie Pugh relayed some of the broker transparency issues that truck drivers encounter routinely during the Mid-America Trucking Show in March.

“I see (problems with broker transparency) in our office every single week,” Pugh said. “One big broker, in particular, is guilty of this but from others as well. Our guys are getting chargebacks after they go to a customer and get a clean bill of lading and leave. A week or two later, they get a bill saying there’s a claim, and they always charge an even number like $500 or $1,000 … Because they don’t have broker transparency, they don’t even have to tell what the charge is for … The sooner we can take care of these things, the better it will be for everybody.”

Exactly what FMCSA will propose won’t be known until the notice is published, but the regulatory agenda provides a synopsis.

“This rulemaking would amend FMCSA property carrier broker rules in response to petitions for rulemaking from the OOIDA and SBTC,” the agency wrote in the agenda.

Although FMCSA lists June as the target date for the broker transparency proposal, it should be noted that it is common for rulemakings to be weeks or months behind schedule.

Other rulemakings

The FMCSA’s regulatory agenda also includes an advance notice of proposed rulemaking on safety fitness procedures, notice of proposed rulemakings on such issues as heavy vehicle speed limiters, automatic emergency braking systems, electronic logging device revisions and electronic IDs; and a final rule on broker and freight forward financial responsibility.

The regulatory agenda maintains June as the target date for FMCSA’s proposal to require speed limiters on most commercial motor vehicles. However, FMCSA Administrator Robin Hutcheson recently told Land Line Now that the proposal would likely be delayed until late summer or early fall.

A complete look at the regulatory agencies’ agenda can be found here. LL