The Department of Transportation is eliminating or revising dozens of rules in response to President Obama's call for a review of burdensome regulations.


Earlier this year, the president issued an Executive Order requiring a government-wide review of regulations to remove outdated ones that stifle job creation and make the economy less competitive.

This week, the DOT, along with other agencies, issued its final plan under Executive Order 13563, which requires the federal executive agencies to identify burdensome or outdated regulations that should be revised.

American Trucking Associations and numerous other organizations submitted formal comments to DOT on this initiative. DOT has identified 79 existing rules that it will revise, including the following requirements that are of particular interest to trucking, according to ATA:

* Enable the use of electronic signatures and electronic recordkeeping options;

* Eliminate redundancies in the driver vehicle inspection requirements;

* Eliminate the requirement that CDL holders notify the licensing state of traffic law convictions; states already receive notice directly from the state issuing the violation;

* Remove the expired hours of service exemption for motor carriers transporting grapes in New York;

* Address the burden of marking UN numbers on bulk containers with hazmat residue remaining; and

* Modify the hazmat incident reporting requirements.

There are 56 more rules the DOT will study before deciding what action to take, including streamlining the credentialing process for hazmat background checks.