Insights - January 2014 - (Page 13)

FEDERAL UPDATE - from page 11 disadvantages law-abiding companies, impacts hard-working, middle-class families and hurts our economy." Visit www.govtrack.us/congress/ bills/113/s1687 to track the measure. Broker Bond Rule Delay Rejected A federal appellate court denied a motion to suspend enforcement of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's new broker bond rule. In a Nov. 26 decision, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta ruled against a request of the Association of Independent Property Brokers and Agents that sought the delay. Under the new FMCSA rule, effective Oct. 1, the minimum amount of a required surety bond increased to $75,000 from $10,000 and the federal agency proceeded with punitive actions that began in December. CSA Data Concerns Highlighted by ATA In a new white paper, American Trucking Associations again questions the reliability of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's Compliance, Safety, Accountability program in evaluating the safety of individual trucking companies. "ATA continues to support the objectives of CSA and to call for improvements to the program," said President and Chief Executive Officer Bill Graves in releasing the Dec. 9 report. "However, data and methodology problems continue to plague the system and the accuracy and reliability of companies' scores." In its paper, ATA examined data and research on the connection between CSA scores and crash risk, as well as how problems with the data and methodology produce an imperfect and unreliable measure of a carrier's safety record. "It may make sense for FMCSA to use scores in those categories that correlate positively with crash risk to prioritize companies for enforcement review," Graves said. "In the process, FMCSA can verify whether or not the scores paint an accurate picture. But third parties need to know that, for the purposes of drawing conclusions about individual carriers, the scores are unreliable." According to research cited by ATA, scores in at least three of the system's measurement categories don't bear a positive correlation to crash risk. Even in those categories that generally have a positive correlation to crash risk, the paper points out there are tens of thousands of real-world "exceptions" - carriers with high scores and low crash rates and vice-versa. Visit bit.ly/ATACSApaper to view the 11-page white paper. Port Air Project Funds Available The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is making $4 million in grant funding available under the Diesel January 2014 | Intermodal Insights 13 https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s1687 https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s1687 http://www.bit.ly/ATACSApaper http://www.du.edu/transportation http://www.du.edu/transportation

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Insights - January 2014

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Insights - January 2014