In a final rule posted yesterday, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration set new state registration fees that are higher than current fees but lower than what the agency proposed last year.


In setting the new structure, the agency set aside trucking concerns about the economic impact of the higher fees in a recessionary time. It said that under the law it is obliged to set the fees at a level that will provide sufficient revenue to the states that participate in the Unified Carrier Registration Plan. It also said that the fee hike is in fact relatively small in the context of industry revenues - less than 0.04 percent of revenue per power unit.

The process of setting the fee schedule begins with a recommendation from a 15-member board, which includes representatives of FMCSA, state agencies and the industry, but in this instance the board was not able to agree on how best to levy the fees. So the agency did its own analysis and settled on a fee schedule that presumes a significant improvement in compliance. The agency says that stepped-up enforcement efforts are starting to pay off.

The problem is that the fees in place now have not produced enough revenue: some states have collected what they need, but taken as a whole the states have come up between $27 million and $31 million short each year since the program began in 2007. The shortfall is primarily due to inadequate enforcement and to miscounting when carriers report how many power units they have.

Here's the new fee schedule:
* Up to two vehicles - raise the fee from $39 to $76 (the proposed fee was $87)
* Three to five vehicles - from $116 to $227 ($256)
* Six to 20 vehicles - from $231 to $452 ($514)
* 21 to 100 vehicles - from $806 to $1,576 ($1,793)
* 101 to 1,000 vehicles - from $3,840 to $7,511 ($8,541)
* 1,001 to 200,000 vehicles - from $37,500 to $73,346 ($83,412)

These fees apply only to power equipment. Formerly, the term "vehicle" included trailers as well as tractors.

Private and for-hire carriers as well as freight forwarders, brokers and leasing companies must pay the fees, although the cost varies depending on the type of operation: brokers and leasing companies pay the smallest fee in the schedule.

States use this money to fund their safety programs, as well as other transportation expenses. Payment of the fees is supposed to be enforced at roadside inspections through an online search of state data. The agency said that overall the states have been getting better at this, although the enforcement effort is not the same in each state.

The new fees went into effect yesterday. The rule can be viewed at www.gpoaccess.gov.