FMCSA Associate Administrator for Policy Larry Minor spoke as a guest on the online Truckers Independent Broadcasting Network show of trucker/host John Grosvenor and owner-operator Shawn Mitchell last Thursday evening. Minor's remarks are worth resurfacing for you here given his emphasis on the exploratory nature of the current Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) around various aspects of the electronic logging device mandate.
An ANPRM, as most readers are probably aware, is an information request sort of notice that, in the case of this one, has certainly raised the eyebrows of many in the owner-operator and small fleet community, evidenced by the round-up of commentary published here yesterday.
[Related: 'Leave us alone': ELD-exempt owners say not to any pre-2000 exemption change]
The strong reaction has come to the very suggestion of possible change -- the agency specifically asked about ELD connectivity possibilities in remanufactured engines in glider kit trucks that are newer than the engine itself. If the engine's original build date is pre-2000, today that exempts the owner from the necessity of complying with the mandate.
"We’re asking questions about it," Minor summed up the agency stance as of the publication of the ANPRM. "This is not a proposal to change anything."
Yet owners of gliders who today enjoy an ELD mandate exemption might well be justified in skepticism -- partly due to the simple fact that if you drop "Advance" from the name of this type of info request, you get an NPRM. That is, a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. A proposal that makes it to that stage is clear indication of an intent to move forward with regulatory change.
As anyone who's run a mountain grade knows, objects put in motion at the top tend to gain momentum on the way down
