EYE ON TRUCKING: It might be a good thing if Congress made top FMCSA job a career position

By LYNDON FINNEY
The Trucker Staff

6/23/2008

Scattershooting while wondering what happened to $3 a gallon diesel...

*              *              *

In a recent interview, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Administrator John Hill told us the Hours of Service rule could wind up in Congress.

Hill, who was his usual open, honest and forthright self during a recent interview following a grant presentation at Newport, Ark., knows like everyone else that regardless of what his agency releases as the “new” final HOS rule, there’s going to be a lawsuit, and then probably “another new” final rule, and then another lawsuit, and then …. well you get the picture.

As everyone also realizes, there has to be an end to this litigation madness somewhere, and that somewhere might be Congress, Hill says.

Well, HOS could indeed end up on Capitol Hill, even if the rule is not eventually codified.

That’s because the country will have a new president in January 2009.

And that means really for the first time in its brief eight-year history, FMCSA will have to work its way through a change in presidential administration.

Yes, we realize that following its formation Jan. 1, 2000, Bill Clinton was in office for one year, but it’s safe to say that little substantive regulations were produced before President Bush took office Jan. 20, 2001.

Therefore, regardless of who wins the White House this fall, there will be a new Secretary of Transportation and a new administrator at FMCSA.

Most folks believe DOT Secretary Mary E. Peters will return to Arizona where she’ll consider a run for governor. Hill will definitely return to Greenwood, Ind., where he served as a high-ranking officer for the Indiana State Police.

From 2000 -2003 in Indiana, he was commander of the Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Division (it’s hard to imagine the mild-mannered, polite John Hill giving anyone a ticket).

So whether Congress eventually winds up passing HOS regulations as federal law, or whether the new president appoints Hill’s replacement, who’ll have to be confirmed by the Senate, Congress will have a hand in determining Hours of Service.

Our take is this: Congress erred when it passed a law making the FMCSA administrator an appointed position.

Safety deserves better.

The last two FMCSA administrators (Hill and Annette Sandberg provided the agency leadership during most of the past eight years) were both professional law enforcement officers.

And, despite what some might lead you to believe, commercial vehicle safety on our nation’s highways has improved. Maybe not where it ought or could be, but it has improved.

Maybe before litigation madness forces it to write a law for something most of its members know little about, Congress ought to take the handcuffs off the next administrator and make the job a career position.

*              *              *

What we’re hearing these days about our industry is just downright scary.

Seldom a day goes by that someone on our staff doesn’t get a telephone call asking if we’ve heard that so-and-so company was going to close.

And we’re not talking about just small companies, either.

Here’s hoping against hope that all the attention Congress is now paying to those obviously-inflated oil prices begins to pay off at the pump for our industry.