U.S. Secretary of Transportation Rodney E. Slater announced Friday that Clyde Hart Jr., Administrator of the U.S. Maritime Administration, will serve as the acting Deputy Administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration effective today, May 22.

Hart will serve in this acting capacity at FMCSA on a temporary basis. Julie Cirillo, formerly acting deputy administrator, will now serve as the Acting Chief Safety Officer.
"We need to strengthen commercial motor vehicle equipment and operating standards and increase safety awareness," said Hart. "I will be working closely with federal, state, and local enforcement agencies, the motor carrier industry, safety and labor interest groups, and others to achieve this goal."
Hart knows trucking from a legislative and regulatory perspective, having served as the senior Democratic lawyer for the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation between 1994 and 1998. Before that, he spent 13 years at the Interstate Commerce Commission as a trial attorney and senior counsel.
In his Congressional work, Hart was involved in key transportation legislation dealing with regulatory reform of the trucking industry, pipeline safety, reform of Amtrak, reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration, the termination of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and the Maritime Security Act of 1996.