Two U.S. senators last week introduced a bill to stop unscrupulous brokers and other middle-men who charge shippers for fuel costs, but don't pass those costs on to the operators who actually pay for the fuel.

Senators Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) introduced the Trust in Reliable Understanding of Consumer Costs (TRUCC) Act. This bill would provide a clear line-item delineating the fuel surcharge in a contract with small business carriers, and would guarantee that the entity in the transaction - whether a shipper, broker, or driver - who absorbs the consistently rising cost of fuel at the pump will become the recipient of the fuel surcharge.
"Small business truckers are often at the mercy of freight brokers, logistics intermediaries and larger trucking companies," Senator Snowe noted. "There is currently no uniform fuel surcharge standard, so such surcharges are often determined without the participation of the operators who are hauling the freight. Without a requirement to disclose the amount of the surcharge in the contract, small business motor carriers are left vulnerable to opportunistic intermediaries who are padding their own coffers at the expense of the hard-working men and women who simply trying to make ends meet."
The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association praised the bill.
"This bill will go a long way toward helping truckers survive the brutal cost of fuel," said Todd Spencer, OOIDA executive vice president. "It's all too common for middlemen in the trucking industry to push shippers to pay fuel surcharges, but only pass along a portion of those surcharges, or none at all, to the truckers who are actually transporting the goods and paying the fuel bill."
This bill differs from ones pushed by both OOIDA in 2000 and 2002. Those bills not only required that fuel surcharges be passed along to owner-operators, but also would have set mandatory fuel surcharge requirements once fuel prices passed a set price.