Government

remain hypothetical,” the ACP said.“ These concerns contrast with the commission’ s regulations, which require a finding that unfavorable conditions do exist before it acts.”

As to whether the FMC can take any action over maritime chokepoints, the International Chamber of Shipping( ICS) said in its comments to the agency that the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea( UNCLOS) governs international shipping lanes. While 170 countries have ratified UNCLOS, the US remains a holdout. But the ICS noted that a 1983 policy statement from then-President Ronald Reagan supported the basic outline of UNCLOS.

The ICS added that countries surrounding the shipping lanes mentioned in the FMC probe have agreed to ensure safe and neutral transits. The ICS admits there are chokepoints, such as where the Houthi attacks on commercial vessels going into the Suez Canal occur and in Russia’ s dominance of the Northern Sea Passage. However, it said the FMC alone is in no position to police those lanes.

“ While operational and security risks exist in any international waterway, these do not constitute grounds for unilateral action by individual states,” the ICS said.“ Any future assessments or policy decisions stemming from the FMC investigation should remain anchored in respect for established international legal norms.”

email: michael. angell @ spglobal. com.

Truckers send Trump administration long list of rules to rewrite or kill

By William B. Cassidy

If the Trump administration wants to deregulate trucking, it will find no lack of suggestions where to start.

A US Department of Transportation( USDOT) request for information on rules that could or should be modified or replaced drew 896 comments from industry organizations, state transportation officials, businesses and individuals in just one month.

The comment period closed in mid-May, and the list of regulations the respondents would like to see amended or

A USDOT request for information on trucking rules that could be modified or abolished drew 896 comments. Shutterstock. com eliminated is long. Many of those responding were independent truckers.

They targeted proposed mandates that would require speed limiting devices on truck engines and automatic emergency brakes( AEB) in heavy trucks, truck driver hours of service( HOS) rules, the electronic logging device( ELD) mandate, and more. Those proposals and rules have been controversial since their inception; the current HOS rules and the ELD mandate were issued during the first Trump administration.

It may be easier for regulators to drop or postpone pending regulations, such as a proposed requirement that trucks be equipped with speed limiters, than to rewrite existing rules such as the ELD mandate and HOS regulations. Many of the requests regarding those rules echo debates with prior administrations.

Proposals to mandate speed limiters were issued in 2016 under the Obama administration and then under the Biden White House in 2022. That last proposal remains active but has not advanced to a final rulemaking.

The ELD mandate— implemented in late 2017— reshaped the US trucking market by making it much more difficult to evade HOS limits. Many comments from truck drivers simply suggested some variant of ending the use of electronic logs and going back to paper logs.

The request for information and the flood of responses are part of the Trump administration’ s effort to identify and cut rules it considers unconstitutional, unlawful, unauthorized and unnecessarily burdensome.

But respondents also called for new regulation that would help deter cargo crime and fraud.

The National Association of Small Trucking Companies( NASTC) called for a permanent fraud enforcement task force with the USDOT Office of the Inspector General.

“ This task force should be solely tasked with enforcing laws against fraud in transportation by investigating incidents and developing cases to bring to the Department of Justice,” the NASTC said in its comments.

The organization also wants the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to“ diligently maintain” its National Consumer Complaint Database to fight fraud cases.

email: bill. cassidy @ spglobal. com www. joc. com June 2, 2025 | Journal of Commerce 35