The Safety Fitness Determination Rule is now sitting on the plate for Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration on which to chew.
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to Increase the amount of liability insurance carriers must have is still on course to be published this month. The rule made its was to the Office of the White House, Management and Budget September 29th, and is expected to clear OMB any day now. The DOT report projected its clearance by October 12th, 2014 but the rule hasn’t cleared yet. The DOT lists a projected publication date of October 22.
Also on the docket, FMCSA’s Safety Fitness Determination Carrier Scoring plan and expected to be published in the first quarter of 2015 as well as with a rule to Mandate The Use of Speed Limiters on Class 8 trucks.
The DOT projects the speed limiter rule to be published in January and the Safety Fitness rule to be published in March. The speed limiter rule should be sent to the OMB this month, the report says. The projected date was Oct. 9. The Safety Fitness Determination rule is projected to hit the OMB in December and to be cleared there in early March, two weeks prior to the March 11 projected publication date. However, FMCSA’s Chief Safety Officer Jack Van Steenburg says the agency is shooting for a publication date of sometime within the 2015 fiscal year (by Oct. 1, 2015).
The agency also has on the docket for upcoming months publication of a Final Rule to implement a CDL Drug and Alchohol Clearinghouse, which would be a database of drivers who have failed or refused to take a drug or alcohol test. Carriers would be required to both query the database when making hires and upload drug testing information.
The Final Rule is expected to be sent to the OMB in June and cleared and published in September, according to the report.
Also, Final Rules to mandate electronic logging devices and prohibit coercion of drivers are also expected within the next year, though no projected dates for those are listed in the department’s report.
The proposed ELD mandate rule was published in late March, and the anti-coercion rule was published in May.
Other rulemakings in the report include FMCSA’s work on a new entrant training and testing process, which does not have any projected action dates listed; a rule to make it easier for military members to obtain a CDL, projected for publication next May; and a rule to require Transportation Security Administration background checks on hazmat haulers, which has no projected action dates.
