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ATA: Independent Review Casts Serious Doubt on HOS Proposal

An independent review of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's Hours of Service "Regulatory Impact Analysis" has found the Agency wildly overstated the proposal's benefits.

While FMCSA claims its proposal would result in up to $380 million in annual benefits, a review compiled by Edgeworth Economics' finds the proposal would result in net costs, and not benefits, of approximately $320 million a year. The Edgeworth report states " ... we find that FMCSA has overstated the net benefits of the proposed rule by about $700 million annually."

The Edgeworth report was released by the American Trucking Associations the day before FMCSA scheduled a final public listening session on its proposed changes to hours-of-service requirements in Arlington, Va.

Edgeworth Economics, an internationally renowned consulting firm that's done work for the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the National Football League Players Association, found that FMCSA used questionable logic, inadequate data and sloppy math in attempting to justify its proposed changes to the hours-of-service rules for commercial drivers.

"FMCSA has made a number of substantial changes to its approach since the previous [regulatory impact analysis] issued in 2007," the Edgeworth report concluded. "We find that, in every instance, FMCSA's new methodologies and assumptions increase the apparent net benefits of the proposed rule. However, many of FMCSA's new approaches rely on misapplication of available data, use outdated information, or lack empirical support entirely."

In addition to being off base by $700 million annually, other notable findings of the Edgeworth study include:

FMCSA made unreasonable assumptions about the safety of the trucking industry by sampling only carriers it subjected to a compliance review, generally for not following federal safety rules; In formulating its proposal, FMCSA used crash data collected before the current rules went into effect, completely ignoring their positive safety impact on the industry.
"Edgeworth's analysis pretty clearly shows that FMCSA's proposal isn't rooted in sound science, good data or logic, and can't stand up to scrutiny," American Trucking Associations President and CEO Bill Graves said. "The findings of this study match what we've heard from our members and what ATA has been saying since FMCSA launched this ill-conceived overhaul of these rules: As proposed, the new hours-of-service rules would impose significant costs on the trucking industry without improving safety. These rules are a cure for a disease that we don't have."

A day earlier, the agency published a notice advising it would extend the HOS comment period to March 4 from February 28 to allow additional time for review of addition documentation recently submitted to the docket -- namely files requested by ATA related to methodology and calculations FMCSA used in formulating the proposed rule.

To encourage maximum public participation, the entire listening session will be webcast live at the FMCSA website. FMCSA officials say they will take online comments and questions from the public from noon to midnight Eastern Standard Time.

For instruction on how to log into FMCSA's listening session, click here.

To see the full report go here.

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