Trucking news & briefs for March 31, 2023:
FMCSA held a listening session related to property brokers and moves the agency is making related to brokers on Friday, March 31, at the Mid-America Trucking Show. Shown, from left, are: Ken Riddle, FMCSA Office Director, Registration and Safety Information; Larry Minor, FMCSA Associate Administrator, Policy; and Scott Mirelson, FMCSA Attorney Advisor, Enforcement and Litigation.Matt Cole
As noted in the letter, too, FMCSA flagged that "OOIDA also proposed adding a prohibition against brokers requiring carriers to waive their right to view transaction records," including the amount paid by the shipper to the broker for the load, "as a condition of doing business."
The agency told the association it had "determined that OOIDA's petition contains adequate justification to initiate rulemaking on this matter," according to the letter, addressed to OOIDA President and CEO Todd Spencer and signed by FMCSA Administrator Robin Hutcheson.
49 Code of Federal Regulations 371.3(c) was foregrounded during the early part of the pandemic as owner-operators around the nation observed a fast decline in spot market rates and questioned both the speed of and level at which the freefall occurred, with many brokers' offers quickly dropping into areas impossible for owner-operators to accept to turn a profit. The regulation guarantees the right of all parties to a brokered transaction to review all records, including amounts paid by all parties in the transaction. Yet barriers to that review in many cases existed. Broker contracts emerged that required carriers to waive such rights as a condition of doing business with particular brokers, and the dire situation at that time -- April/May 2020 -- sparked protests in Washington, D.C., accompanied by charges of "reverse price gouging" by brokers lowballing rates.
[Related: Remember 'reverse price gouging'? A success story in resistance]
While initiating rulemaking is far from any clear indication of what form any eventual final rule might take, FMCSA noted in a listening session held Friday, March 31, at the Mid-America Trucking show that the first step would likely be a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM). OOIDA Executive Vice President Lewie Pugh said after the listening session that OOIDA's hope is that FMCSA does "the right thing" when writing the proposal. "We're glad they finally got there. We submitted this, it seems to be so long ago for this transparency. It's something that's definitely needed."
