Trucking news and briefs for Wednesday, March 11, 2026:
- New government grants to cover trucking school?
- Fleet owner to forfeit nearly $4M after bribery scheme sentencing.
- Women’s trucker group calls on Congress for more parking funding.
Education Dept. proposes expanding Pell Grants that could cover trucking school
The Department of Education has proposed to establish a new “Workforce Pell Grant” that would expand Pell Grant eligibility to certain shorter-term programs.
The proposals follow a requirement in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) budget reconciliation signed into law last summer. Specifically, the OBBB expanded Pell Grant eligibility to eligible workforce programs that are shorter in duration than the undergraduate programs currently eligible for Pell Grants.
Under the Education Department’s proposal, “Workforce Pell Grants” would allow students to receive Pell Grants for eligible workforce programs that are 150-599 clock hours in length or an equivalent number of credit hours, and that take 8-15 weeks of instructional time to complete.
Currently, Pell Grants can only be applied to programs with a duration of 15 or more weeks and are inaccessible to students in shorter-term, high-quality job training programs.
The Pell Grant expansion could be good news for prospective truck drivers and diesel technicians. While many CDL classes are less than the eight-week minimum for the new Workforce Pell Grants, there are some that meet that threshold. On the other hand, most diesel tech training takes more than a year, but some certification programs last less than 15 weeks. The Universal Technical Institute, for example, offers 12-week, manufacturer-specific advanced training programs for Cummins, Peterbilt, and Daimler Truck North America.
“Supporting professional, qualified drivers is essential to ensuring our industry can continue to deliver the nation’s freight safely and efficiently,” said American Trucking Associations Chief Advocacy & Public Affairs Officer Henry Hanscom. “By expanding Pell Grant flexibility to make short-term educational programs eligible, this rulemaking will open the door of opportunity to more young people seeking rewarding, good-paying careers in trucking. ATA commends Congress and the Trump Administration for supporting this profession that provides a middle-class lifestyle to Americans without the time and expense of a four-year college degree.”
The Education Department is requesting comments on its proposal, which can be made here through April 8.
Trucking company owner sentenced in FedEx bribery scheme
The owner of several Utah-based trucking companies was sentenced last month after being found guilty in 2024 for his role in a bribery scheme to get business from FedEx Ground.
On Feb. 3, the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah sentenced Konstantin Tomilin to three years of supervised release. As part of the judgment, the court ordered Tomilin to pay $650,000 in restitution, forfeit cash and assets totaling $3,891,650, and a $100 assessment. Another defendant, Yevgeny Felix Tuchinsky, had been found guilty of the same charges.
An investigation found that Tomilin and Tuchinsky, along with others, owned Salt Lake Trucking Group (SLTG). SLTG was comprised of several trucking companies that contracted to carry packages for FedEx Ground (FXG).
During the approximate 10-year period of the conspiracy, SLTG paid approximately $300,000 in bribes to Ryan Mower, a FXG linehaul manager. Mower used his position to game FXG's process governing the awarding of new runs and helped the co-conspirators grow their business larger than FXG allowed by submitting false information to FXG.
SLTG received about $150 million in revenue from FXG during the conspiracy’s lifetime.
Two other SLTG owners, Davor Kovacevic and Zlate Balulovski, were sentenced in 2023.
ATA’s Women in Motion urges Congress for more truck parking
The American Trucking Associations’ Women In Motion (WIM) Council has called on two congressional committees to prioritize expanding access to truck parking in the upcoming surface transportation reauthorization.
WIM Chair Emily Williams sent the letters to the leaders of the U.S. House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure and the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works in response to feedback from WIM members that a lack of truck parking is severely limiting opportunities for women to pursue trucking careers.
The two committees are tasked with updating and extending the nation’s highway programs before they expire on Sept. 30, 2026.
“Amenities like lighted parking lots, bathroom access, and on-site security are not simply matters of convenience – they are essential to ensuring women’s safety and wellbeing,” Williams wrote. “Serious safety implications exist for the broader public as well. When trucks are forced to park in unmarked and unauthorized locations, such as along highway ramps, it creates hazards for truck drivers and motorists alike, contributing to thousands of crashes each year.”
Williams added that investing in truck parking “would address a basic safety and workforce necessity for our nation’s 3.6 million truck drivers, including hundreds of thousands of women truck drivers, who deserve a safe, secure place to rest at the end of their shifts.”
Legislation passed earlier this year to fund the government through Sept. 30, for the first time, included $200 million in earmarked specifically for truck parking.
[Related: $200M for truck parking in funding bill signed into law]
