Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/699972
commercial carrier journal | july 2016 15 JOURNAL NEWS CSA scores likely to be hidden for two years, DOT chief says T he reforms required by Congress to the federal Compliance Safety Accountability carrier ranking system will take about two years to complete, U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx told a Senate panel last month. That's the same timeline the industry can expect to see CSA scores – the percentile rankings in the CSA Safety Measurement System's seven BASICs – return to public view. "Based on our preliminary assess- ment, it's going to take a while to do the revised analysis," Foxx told the Senate's Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, referring to the changes in the CSA scoring methodology called for by Congress in the 2015 FAST Act highway bill. "We expect it to take a year or two, probably more like two, before that information (CSA SMS rankings) will be posted back up." The FAST Act required the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to pull CSA SMS rankings from public view, though much of the underlying violation data remains available pub- licly. Congress also directed the agency to work with the National Academies of Science and other government accountability agencies to develop a plan to reform the system before the scores can be returned to public view. Since the program's 2010 inception, many inside and outside the trucking industry have pointed to flaws in the program's data well and the methods used to calculate carriers' scores. The resulting flawed scores were available for third parties such as shippers, bro- kers and insurers to view and make determinations about carriers and their crash risk despite their inconsis- tent underlying data. The program has been particularly unfair for small carriers and owner- operators, studies have shown. The required reforms are meant to bring CSA scores more in line with carri- ers' actual crash risk. – James Jaillet Court strikes down California emissions compliance options A California Superior Court ruled last month to strike down several 2014- made amendments to the state's strict emissions rules. The amendments were meant to give compliance flexibility to owner-operators and other small fleet owners who might have trouble afford- ing equipment upgrades or add-ons to bring their trucks into compliance. The Superior Court of Fresno directed the California Air Resources Board to void the amendments to its Truck & Bus Rule. CARB says the amendments will remain in effect, how- ever, while it appeals the court ruling. The court decision did not affect the Truck & Bus Rule itself. Opponents of the amendments, including the suit's plaintiff California Trucking Association, argue the delayed compliance schedule afforded by the amendments effectively pun- ishes fleets and owner-operators who made the effort and spent the money required to comply by putting them at a competitive disadvantage. The judge overseeing the case, Superior Court Judge Mark Snauffer, agreed with the plaintiffs. CARB, how- ever, argues the compliance alternatives offered by the amendments "provide badly needed flexibility to smaller fleets." CARB's strictest-in-the-nation emis- sions regulations were phased in over a nearly decade-long period, eventually requiring all pre-2007 model-year truck owners to either upgrade to a newer emissions-compliant truck or install particulate matter filters by Jan. 1, 2014. However, CARB voted in April 2014 to amend some of the deadlines associated with its regulations. Under the amend- ments, fleets with three or fewer trucks that were denied a loan to purchase a retrofit diesel particulate filter – the costs of which can be upwards of $20,000 – could run their truck as-is if they committed to buying a new emissions- compliant truck or installed a particu- late filter by the end of 2016. To take advantage of this amendment and others, operators would have to file an application with the state and prove they couldn't get a loan or otherwise could not afford to purchase a new truck or a particulate matter filter. The amendments also gave carriers with three or fewer trucks extra time to bring their second and third trucks into compliance. Such carriers' second trucks had to become compliant by January of this year – a delay from the previous January 2015 deadline – while third trucks had until Jan. 1, 2018, to become compliant. – James Jaillet U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx told a Senate panel that work on the federal CSA carrier ranking system may take two years. CARB says the amendments to its Truck & Bus Rule will remain in effect while it appeals the court ruling.