FMCSA’s Elison addresses Motus again, still no date on full repair

Interviewed by FreightWaves podcast host Charles Gracey, Elison did say it would be “really weeks and not months, not like six months before we tackle this, before we stabilize it.” He conceded that the “user experience” has been on “working on keeping people out,” which is actually a goal, to ensure that unqualified carriers can not register with the system. “But it is still absolutely more people than just the bad actors we intended it for,” Elison said.

Keeping out some bad guys

“But that measuring stick, it has worked,” Elison said about the blocked path for unqualified registrants. “But we need to be a little better than that. There are companies out there that want to operate. They want to build this trust.”

Elison added that conditions are still better than the first four to six weeks of Motus’ operations, “which were really, really brutal.”

“You’re trying to fix something and then you break it, and then you need to get your handle around that where you’re not breaking things and you’re going in the right direction,” Elison said. 

Elison spoke of the long-term benefits of Motus without any indication that conditions for its users will be better soon. “Motus is going to deliver,” Elison said. “It’s going to be the system that really serves the industry.”

Users who are experiencing “challenges” should “reach out to us,” Elison said. “Please contact us because we move on those in real time.”

FMCSA has waived certain registration requirements as a result of the Motus woes. Elison’s message at the symposium: “If you don’t need to go in, don’t go in yet.”

For those who do have immediate registration needs, Elison recommended that if they can’t fully register, “reach out to your insurance contacts. Reach out to whoever you have to. Reach out directly to FMCSA and we will definitely reach out to them.”

Changes due to elections?

There is little doubt that FMCSA and the Department of Transportation under Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy and FMCSA administrator Derek Barrs have shaken up trucking regulation like no other pair of top guns have done in years. Whether it’s the move to restrict non-domiciled holders of CDLs or shutting down CDL schools, the impact has been significant. 

Motus was an inherited project, but neither Elison nor Barrs has blamed earlier administrators for its problems.  

With a Republican defeat of some magnitude projected for Election Day next week, Elison said he did not see a change in current FMCSA policies.

“Regardless of how things go over in the next week or so, we are going to continue to deliver, and we’ve got the support from the Secretary, which is an absolute game changer,” Elison said. 

He added that there “will be a little bit of wind maybe attempted to take that out of our sail.”

Broker transparency rule…it’s coming

One looming issue: the broker transparency rule. Whatever is in the final rule is not known, but it will govern to some degree what brokers must disclose to shippers and carriers about their own activities. Its release has been seen as somewhat close to imminent for awhile. 

Elison would only say that “you’re going to hear a lot more (FMCSA actions) like the broker transparency rule.” It will be part of what Elison said would be other rules that FMCSA “is going to deliver on in the very near future.”

One issue Elison said FMCSA will seek to deliver on “in the near future” is in the agency’s Unified Agenda, released over the summer, a sort of formal “to-do” list, is for changes or strengthening of rules governing new entrants. Elison described it as a priority.

In the Unified Agenda, FMCSA said it would seek a formal rulemaking “for ensuring a new applicant carrier is knowledgeable about the applicable safety requirements before being granted New Entrant authority.”

FMCSA, according to the Unified Agenda, “is considering whether to implement a proficiency examination as part of its revised New Entrant Safety Assurance Process as well as other alternatives.”

Part of the agency’s efforts in that regard would be to push back against allowing CDL schools to self-certify their compliance with federal rules. Elison said a goal would be to “bring uniformity across the board.”

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