Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration February 2005 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

FMCSA issues this Interim Final Rule (IFR) to clarify and modify the applicability of certain Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Departmental Title VI provisions that implement Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and related nondiscrimination statutes, as they apply to FMCSA Federal financial assistance recipients. The ``savings provision'' of section 106(b) of the Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act of 1999 provides the opportunity for this clarification and modification. As part of this initiative, FMCSA establishes a new Part 303 under 49 CFR chapter III, Subchapter A, for future FMCSA Title VI implementing regulations and any future guidelines on Title VI compliance. This IFR will provide FMCSA with initial guidelines and procedures for implementing its Title VI procedures. This will be done by continuing to apply and use the Departmental umbrella Title VI regulations in 49 CFR part 21 to any program or activity for which Federal financial assistance is authorized under a law administered by FMCSA. FMCSA will remain subject to those Title VI requirements at the Departmental level, and will develop as needed further guidelines and procedures in accordance with the law to assure effective and consistent implementation for financially assisted recipients. FMCSA also removes itself from the FHWA Title VI regulations set forth at 23 CFR part 200, because they are not appropriate for FMCSA programs and activities. Doing so will avoid any potential confusion while not altering the substantive Title VI obligations of FMCSA and its grantees.

In accordance with the requirement in section 3506(c)(2)(A) of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA), the FMCSA is announcing that the new information collection request described in this notice is being sent to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval. We are required under the PRA to send information collection requests to OMB. This information collection is related to a study of the causation of commercial motor vehicle crashes mandated by the Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act of 1999. The bus study will fulfill the bus portion of this mandate and aid in the determination of the reasons for, and factors contributing to, serious bus crashes. The Federal Register notice announcing a 60-day comment period on this information collection was published on August 23, 2004 (69 FR 51879).

On January 24, 2005, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) published in the Federal Register (70 FR 3339) a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) regarding hours of service of commercial motor vehicle drivers. In that NPRM, FMCSA announced it is reviewing and reconsidering the regulations on hours of service of drivers published on April 28, 2003, and amended on September 30, 2003. In the docket to this January 24, 2005, NPRM, FMCSA re-filed the same Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA), or comprehensive analysis of economic benefits and costs of the proposed rule, as was filed in the docket for the April 2003 final rule. However, effective January 1, 2005, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) imposed new analytical requirements on Federal agencies regarding the preparation of RIAs for economically significant rulemakings. These new requirements include an uncertainty analysis, or an analysis of the ``degree of uncertainty'' associated with key variables used in the analysis (i.e., the percent of all truck-related crashes where commercial driver fatigue is a factor) and how significantly that uncertainty affects the benefit and cost estimates derived. A primary value of uncertainty analysis is its ability to highlight those key variables where additional data collection (to reduce uncertainty) would most benefit the decision making process. Additionally, OMB now requires a cost-effectiveness analysis for those rulemakings where improved public health and safety are the primary benefits. The cost effectiveness of a regulatory action is typically measured as a ratio of the change in costs occasioned by the action compared to its positive results (i.e., lives saved). A primary value of cost-effectiveness analysis is its ability to identify regulatory options that achieve the most effective use of the resources available without requiring monetization of all of the relevant benefits or costs. In light of these new requirements, FMCSA has prepared an addendum to the original RIA containing the two supplemental analyses and has made it available in Docket FMCSA-2004- 19608.