Truckers, keep flexing your grassroots muscles
In Washington, D.C., success is measured in inches nowadays. What’s shorter than inches? Centimeters? Maybe that’s more accurate.
Anyway, the time of bills gliding through the legislative process and being signed into law by the president feels like a relic of a bygone era. Even bipartisan legislation with universal stakeholder support (see the Truck Parking Safety Improvement Act) has failed to become law after being bogged down in the quagmire that Congress has become.
As a result of this new reality, stakeholders from across the trucking industry have turned to the federal regulatory process as a means to advance their policy objectives. Right about now, you’re probably mentally pointing judgmental fingers at mega fleets and safety advocacy groups that have notoriously pushed for anti-competitive and utterly unworkable mandates. That’s fair. I certainly agree they have championed some truly ridiculous policies over the past few years. And while I want you to maintain the frustration you currently feel for these stakeholders when they launch these specious boondoggles, I also want you to recognize this is a two-way street. OOIDA pushes for the implementation of regulations that benefit owner-operators and professional drivers.
The point I am finally getting to in this column is this: As more serious policy matters take shape in the regulatory process, it has never been more important for small-business truckers to flex their grassroots muscles. And in this regard, truckers are the Arnold Schwarzenegger or Lou Ferrigno of grassroots advocacy. Energized and outspoken truckers can deliver Herculean results in regulatory battles.
A great example of what you’ve accomplished with vocal grassroots advocacy involves speed limiters. When ATA’s efforts to legislatively impose a speed limiter mandate failed, it pivoted to petitioning FMCSA to force an industry-wide mandate. When the Biden administration embraced the ill-conceived proposal and initiated a rulemaking, our backs were firmly against the wall.
But what ATA and Biden bureaucrats didn’t anticipate – or perhaps ignorantly underestimated – was the groundswell of opposition their scheme would generate from the men and women making their living on the road. The filing of over 15,000 comments against the regulation bogged down the process. Not only did this slow FMCSA’s chances of finalizing a rule, it bought us time to generate significant opposition against a mandate on Capitol Hill. This one-two punch demonstrated to federal regulators that their proposal was wildly unpopular among truckers and legislators. Ultimately, the rulemaking became so toxic the Biden administration let it rot on the vine.
Conversely, OOIDA proactively petitioned the first Trump administration back in 2020 to take regulatory steps to improve broker transparency. President Joe Biden inherited the issue on his first day in office, but it took several more years of relentless advocacy to pay off, with a rulemaking finally launched late last year.
Even with a brief window to provide comments – unfortunately coinciding with the busy holiday season – truckers still spoke up in undeniably strong numbers. This demonstrated to the new Trump administration that it must finish what it started years ago. Our hope is that while its officials pull back costly and burdensome regulations elsewhere, they also move quickly to finalize a rule that ensures brokers are no longer able to skirt federal transparency rules. Your comments help make that case!
With a new Congress and administration in place, no one is certain how productive (or interested) either will be in promulgating new federal regulations. But truckers have illustrated they can respond in force to prevent harmful mandates, while doing the same to advance beneficial regulations. This has always been our strength, though it may be needed now more than ever. LL