Lautenberg 'Concerned' About Truck Safety Nominee

The chairman of a key Senate subcommittee today told trucking industry official Anne S. Ferro he was "concerned" about her ability to enforce truck safety rules as President Obama's nominee to lead the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., made the remarks at Ferro's nomination hearing in the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. He heads the committee's surface transportation panel.

Ferro is president and CEO of the Maryland Motor Truck Administration, and her nomination by Obama in June raised sharp objections from the Teamsters and some highway safety groups opposed to the current hours of service rules for truck drivers.

Calling FMCSA "an agency in dire need of reform," Lautenberg questioned Ferro's support for mandatory use of electronic onboard recorders in trucks, stronger enforcement of driver hours of service limitations and truck size and weight limits.

She also was grilled on household goods movers, a national clearinghouse for alcohol and drug test results and cross-border trucking with Mexico.

"I am concerned about your ability to take the bold action that is needed" in trucking safety, Lautenberg said, asking Ferro how she could be an impartial regulator after lobbying for the trucking industry the past six years.

Ferro stressed her prior work as a state motor vehicle administrator and regulator in Maryland, and vowed to be a "fair and balanced regulator" who would use "data-driven, sound scientific research" to significantly reduce truck and bus crashes.

"Whoever leads this agency must foster frank discussions about the fundamentals in the freight supply chain and motor coach
industries that encourage participants to push the limits and put the driving public and other commercial drivers at risk," she said in her opening statement.

"Uncompensated time, compensation by the mile or load, professional drivers classified as laborers – these are all aspects of a supply-chain model that rewards squeezing transportation costs out of the equation; factors that shift the cost onto the driving public and professional driver."

The FMCSA Administrator must take the lead "if we are to realize a commercial vehicle industry where the safest drivers and safest motor carriers are the most competitive, not the other way around," she said.