In the News
Well, I vowed I would keep this blog current, but I guess I haven’t been doing a very good job. Well, I did run a marathon two weeks ago, so that sort of thing, along with doing your normal 60 – 70 hours a week job keeps you busy. So what has been happening? Well, Anne Ferro, head of FMCSA, said they will not miss a beat in pursuing their EOBR dictum. Or miss a step. Or something like that. Anyway, they are pressing forward as if nothing happened. No surprise there. It will take them a good amount of time to bulletproof their next rulemaking, so it will be next year before anything new is issued on the EOBR front. They might not even get it out then, but I am certain they want it published before the 2012 elections.
On the hours of service front, FMCSA is probably within a month of announcing what the new hours of service rules will be. The ATA has pulled out all the stops to stop the new rules, but presently, it looks like the Obama Administration will dance with who brung them, that being the Teamsters. The FMCSA has signaled it IS going to issue these new rules, and they will be more restrictive. Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee John Mica has threatened to “aggressively oversee” any attempted changes to the hours of service rules. I hold out no hope he’s going to do anything. The only thing Congress does aggressively is spend taxpayers money. The fact that Mica is a Republican is irrelevant. In fact, before becoming Obama’s regulatory point-man, Ray LaHood was a Congressman. Do you know which party he belonged to? Wait for it………… the Republican party. Mica will do nothing.
The ATA has promised an immediate lawsuit when FMCSA finally makes its move. I think there is a better than even chance ATA will achieve some kind of standoff in court which will force FMCSA to keep using the old rules, at least for awhile. The bottomline is, no one knows what rules will be in effect 6 months from now.
One other thought: I have been watching these Republican debates. I’m deciding who to support in the GOP primary. I did hear one candidate say something which I’ve been waiting to hear. This candidate said he would halt all of Obama’s rulemakings, which I think would be absolutely fantastic, and help get the economy moving again. Unfortunately, the candidate who said it was Mitt Romney, who takes both sides of every issue. Romney is no way, shape or form will stop the government takoever of the private sector now underway. In fact, I have decided if Romney is the nominee I will vote for myself. While I don’t like my chances on winning, at least I won’t be a Big Government socialist like Obama or Romney.
