The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is continuing to work on truck driver hours of service reform, but don’t look for substantive decisions until after the Senate has confirmed Joseph Clapp as administrator.

And don’t expect those decisions to show up as a final rule for many months. Federal law requires the agency to conduct an in-depth regulatory analysis of the rule, a process that will take at least a year, and perhaps longer.
But even before it gets to the details, the agency must decide if it will in fact proceed with a final rule. It still could determine to go for major revisions in a supplemental proposal, or to start again with new research.
FMCSA Assistant Administrator Julie Anna Cirillo expects that decision to be made by the senior political leadership at the Department of Transportation after Clapp has been confirmed, she said in an interview with Truckinginfo.com.
Clapp’s confirmation hearing is not yet scheduled. Sen. Fritz Hollings, D-S.C., chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, has promised to move quickly on the confirmation hearing.
Clapp, the former chairman of LTL giant Roadway Express and an acknowledged safety leader, is likely to be confirmed, according to Hill sources. (See 'Bush Nominates Joseph Clapp to Top Safety Post," 7/18/2001.) However, he will encounter some opposition. Gerald Donaldson of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety said his group will object to Clapp because of his industry background and his past support for longer combination vehicles.
Meanwhile, the safety agency is getting ready for the next step if it does decide to proceed with part or all of the rule. Cirillo explained that the agency is now searching for an outside contractor to conduct a regulatory analysis that will examine all aspects of the policy decisions.
Cirillo explained that DOT would ask the consultant to analyze a series of “scenarios,” or variations on the proposed rule. The scenarios, which could for example cover alternative scheduling schemes, will be based on what the agency learned from comments on its original proposal, Cirillo said.
She expects that through the scenarios, the analysis would cover major concerns raised about the proposal. It would, for example, address the trucking industry’s assertion that the proposed rule will cut back on productivity and force companies to put more drivers on the road – which in turn would increase the risk of accidents.
She said the decision to go with an outside consultant for the analysis is not in response to industry criticism of the agency’s own cost-benefit analysis of the original proposal. Trucking interests in particular claimed that analysis was seriously flawed, and urged the agency to start anew with a third-party review.
“Given the importance, the complexity and the wide range of comments that we got on the rule, and the limitations that we have staff-wise, I think we would have engaged a consultant regardless,” she said. “I can’t be sure of that but I am almost sure of that. This is not a third-party rule, this is our rule.”
At least one industry observer is concerned about FMCSA’s approach to this project. According to Kevin Williams, CEO of the Distribution and LTL Carriers Assn., the agency’s request for bid does not include any of the alternatives offered by industry.
Williams said the request asks contractors to explain how they would handle three alternatives: the current HOS rules with the additional requirement of an onboard recorder; the proposed revisions to the current rules; and an exemption from the rules for short-haul carriers.
This shows that the agency is looking more to validate the work that it already has done, than to look at other alternatives, Williams said.
Agency spokesman David Longo disagreed with this assessment. He said that the alternatives were chosen as a way to evaluate the capabilities of the contractors – “not to say that this is the work they will be asked to do.”
“When the contract is awarded, these options may be included, and they may not,” he said.
In the interview, Cirillo said, “We have not yet determined the scenarios. We are still working on them.”
Under federal law, the regulatory analysis must cover the total costs and benefits of the final rule. It also must address the impact of the rule on the profitability of small businesses. It must calculate the energy impact of the rule – the amount of fuel used by additional drivers, for example – and the environmental impact created by, say, emissions from additional trucks.