Transportation 19

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration ("FMCSA") released a Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in order to address concerns regarding its electronic onboard recorder ("EOBR") rule.  By way of background, the initial Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ("NPRM") required frequent hours of service violators to use EOBRs starting July 2012. After making changes to the proposal in light of industry suggestions, the second proposal which  proposes to expand the initial NPRM to include practically all carriers, and is intended to address concerns about the technical standards in the NPRM. However, during the revisions set forth by the FMCSA, the 7th Circuit threw out the EOBR rule, as it did not address the issue of preventing harassment through the use of EOBRs as the FMCSA was statutorily requried to do. As a result, the FMCSA went back to the drawing board and now has decided to hold public listening sessions on the harassment issue and on the technical questions before proposing a revised rule. The FMCSA will release a schedule for the listening sessions in the near future.