8/9/2019 OOIDA Small Business RegFlex Improvements Act January 27 2015

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Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association

National Headquarters: 1 NW OOIDA Drive, Grain Valley, MO 64029

Tel: (816) 229-5791 Fax: (816) 427-4468

Washington Office: 1100 New Jersey Ave, SE, Washington, DC 20003

Tel: (202) 347-2007 Fax: (202) 347-2008

January 27, 2015

The Honorable Robert Goodlatte

Chairman

Committee on the Judiciary

2138 Rayburn House Office Building

Washington, DC 20515

Dear Chairman Goodlatte

As the representative of our nations small business truckers and professional drivers, the Owner-Operator

Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) writes in strong support of H.R. ___, the Small Business Regulatory

Flexibility Improvements Act of 2015.

Trucking is an industry dominated by small businesses, with around half of the nations 500,000 for-hire motorcarriers operating as one-truck/one-driver owner-operator businesses. Indeed, more than 90 percent of all of our

nations trucking businesses are small businesses, with fleets comprising of 20 or fewer trucks. Given the nature of

trucking, it is critical that any rulemaking action fully evaluate the impacts to small businesses.

Unfortunately, the history of trucking-related regulations issued by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration

(FMCSA) and others is filled with examples where the small business impacts of a proposal were not fully evaluated

or that evaluation used improper methodology. For instance, a study recently issued to form the basis for justifying

and calculating the safety benefits for a regulation examined only eleven motor carriers. Of those carriers, nine

possessed over 1,000 trucks while the remaining two operated between 100 and 500 trucks.1 This is hardly

representative of the trucking industry.

Further, trucking-related regulations are frequently evaluated in isolation from other rulemakings, even those

completed or underway by the very same agency, resulting in significant cumulative impacts that a large trucking

business may be able to deal with, but become absolutely crippling to a small business. In recent years, smallbusiness truckers have seen more restrictive hours-of-service rules that negatively impact both safety and income,

diesel emissions rules that make new trucks more expensive and more likely to break down2, yet, the FMCSA and

other agencies are moving forward with even more regulations, requirements, and mandates. No one is stopping to

ask if all this regulatory action happening at the same time is having the wrong impact on highway safety and the

environment.

The Small Business Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act of 2015 includes common-sense improvements to the

regulatory development process that expand analysis and review to ensure that rules are focused on addressing true

problems at limited impact to small businesses. With these changes, the concerns of small business truckers

outlined above, along with others, will begin to be addressed. We urge all Members of Congress to support this

legislation.

Sincerely,

Todd Spencer

Executive Vice President

1 Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Evaluating the Potential Safety Benefits of Electronic Hours-of-Service Recorders Final Report, April 2014, AVAILABLE:http://ntl.bts.gov/lib/51000/51800/51846/13-059-Evaluating_the_Potential_Safety_Benefits_of_Electronic_HOS--Full_Report.pdf. For a critique of the study from the OOIDA Foundation, visithttp://www.ooida.com/MediaCenter/PressReleases/pressrelease.asp?prid=354.

2 See, for example, American Truck Dealers, A Look Back at EPAs Cost and OtherImpact Projections for My 2004-2010 Heavy-Duty Truck Emissions Standards,February 2012,AVAILABLE: http://www.nada.org/legislativeaffairs/fuel-economy-environment/truck_emissions_standards/.