While the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration signaled earlier this year that it will initiate a rulemaking that would alter its brokered freight transaction transparency regulations, the trade association leading the charge is growing impatient.
The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association first petitioned FMCSA to improve broker transparency in May 2020, requesting that brokers be required to provide transaction information automatically within 48 hours of the completion of contractual services and that brokers be prohibited from including any provision that requires a carrier to waive their rights to access the transaction records.
The Biden Administration’s Spring 2023 Unified Regulatory Agenda projected that a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) regarding Transparency in Property Carrier Broker Transactions would be published in June, but as of Aug. 22, no such notice has materialized.
[Related: Owner-ops sound off to FMCSA on need for more light on brokered rates]
“Unfortunately, our association has to report [to its members] that the NPRM is still pending even as broker concerns increasingly plague the industry,” OOIDA said in an Aug. 17 letter to FMCSA Administrator Robin Hutcheson.
“As freight rates have declined throughout 2023, we have heard small-business truckers voice their frustrations about broker fraud,” the group added. “We understand that not all low rates are the result of unscrupulous brokers, but it can be difficult for carriers to identify legitimate brokers with the ineffective transparency regulations currently in place.”
OOIDA reiterated a statement it made in a September 2022 letter to FMCSA, noting that though small-business truckers’ concerns “may intensify during more challenging economic times,” the frustration OOIDA hears from its members is constant.
