In early July 2024, the federal government published its latest Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions—a twice a year publication that compiles information on planned regulatory actions over the next 12 months. This Agenda includes projected publication dates for the most important regulatory actions of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), among others.

This latest Agenda reflects that the publication of three significant rulemaking actions at FMCSA –a Speed Limiter mandate, Safety Rating Process changes, and ELD revisions--have been delayed until mid-2025.  And the joint FMCSA-NHTSA rulemaking to mandate Automatic Emergency Braking systems on new trucks has also been delayed until early 2025, after the Presidential election. Interestingly though, the publication of four less significant, administrative rulemaking actions are not delayed until after the election.

Given this, we asked ourselves why the USDOT chose to focus on far less important rulemaking actions. Maybe this is a ‘Captain Obvious’ moment, but it’s clear to STC that these delays are politically motivated. FMCSA and NHTSA leadership know that Speed Limiters, the AEB mandate, the safety rating process and the ELD rule revisions are controversial rules that will rub some stakeholders the wrong way.  So, USDOT leadership chose to avoid the controversy by punting the important and controversial rules until well after the election.

Some might offer an alternative view by suggesting that the Biden Administration is deferring the policy decisions on these important, far-reaching rules until after the election out of respect, wanting to give the next President the opportunity to make these important policy decisions.  While a plausible explanation, it is not one to which STC subscribes since it suggests that this Administration is contemplating a loss.  We do not believe this is how this Administration, or any Presidential Administration, thinks during a Presidential campaign.

To be fair, the Biden Administration is not the only Administration to make these types of decisions months before a Presidential election.  It is part of most Administrations’ playbook, in our experience.

Regular readers of this newsletter may remember STC’s "Speeding Slim" to None article in February 2024 predicted that the chance of a Speed Limiter rule being published before the Presidential election was slim to none.  USDOT’s recent decision confirmed this prediction.  The political tea leaves at DOT were not hard to read then, nor are they hard to read now.