Trucking Safety Advocate to Serve as Deputy Administrator of FMCSA

The Obama Administration has tapped a Maryland lawmaker to become deputy administrator of the Department of Transportation's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

Bill Bronrott, a Maryland state delegate, will start April 27.

According to published reports, Bronrott has also been a spokesman for the Truck Safety Coalition, an organization that represents Parents Against Tired Truckers and Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways, often seen as anti-trucking groups.

Past truck safety initiatives Bronrott has been involved in include the enactment of a federal law in 1991 that prevented the spread of triple trailer trucks and double-48-foot trucks into Maryland and other states. Another federal standard required truck manufacturers to build safer rear impact guards on the backs of truck trailers. Bronrott was also involved in the defeat of a federal proposal that would have increased the number of hours drivers could stay behind the wheel.

He has served the last 12 years in the Maryland House of Delegates, where he has worked on numerous bills to strengthen the state's teen driving, impaired driving, aggressive driving, pedestrian safety, and child passenger safety laws.

Prior to his election to the House of Delegates in 1998, Bronrott served as press secretary and transportation safety advisor to Congressman Michael D. Barnes of Maryland. During that time, he helped launch Mothers Against Drunk Driving and and rallied the Congress to successfully urge President Reagan to appoint the Presidential Commission on Drunk Driving.

Bronrott also was involved in the U.S. House passage of bills establishing the National Uniform 21 Minimum Drinking Age Act, a DOT incentive grant program that provides additional federal aid to states adopting model highway safety laws, and the annual National Drunk and Drugged Driving Prevention Month and National Child Passenger Safety Awareness Week.

Over the past two decades, he has also worked with various highway safety organizations on the congressional reauthorization of the federal surface transportation program known as ISTEA, SAFETEA and SAFETEA-LU.

"Bill Bronrott brings an extraordinary combination of skills and experience from his three decades as a respected highway safety leader, a highly effective public communications practitioner, and as someone dedicated to government service," said Anne Ferro, FMCSA administrator.

In the House of Delegates, Bronrott serves on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation and the Environment, chairs the Montgomery County Delegation's Land Use and Transportation Committee, and represents the Maryland House on the National Capital Region's Transportation Planning Board.

Bronrott earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the department of communication at the University of Maryland at College Park.