DOT calls for public input on regulations to remove, modify

Matt Cole

Following executive orders from President Donald Trump related to the administration’s deregulatory agenda, the Department of Transportation is asking for public input on existing regulations and other regulatory documents that can be modified or repealed to help meet the administration’s goals.

In a Federal Register notice published Thursday, the DOT said it is seeking “comments and information to assist DOT in identifying existing regulations, guidance, paperwork requirements, and other regulatory obligations that can be modified or repealed, consistent with law, to ensure that DOT administrative actions do not undermine the national interest and that DOT achieves meaningful burden reduction while continuing to meet statutory obligations and ensure the safety of the U.S. transportation system.”

Trump’s executive orders require:

• Unless prohibited by law, whenever an agency proposes a new regulation, it must identify at least 10 existing regulations to be repealed, a significant expansion of a similar executive order issued during Trump’s first term requiring just two regulations be repealed for any one promulgated.
• For fiscal year 2025, all agencies must ensure that the total incremental cost of all new regulations, including repealed regulations, being finalized is significantly less than zero, as determined by the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), unless otherwise required by law or instructions from OMB
• Any new incremental costs associated with new regulations must, to the extent permitted by law, be offset by the elimination of existing costs associated with at least 10 prior regulations

Citing a February executive order relative to the “President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ Deregulatory Agenda,” too, the DOT Federal Register notice outlined seven categories of regulation it was seeking to identify, as all federal agencies must report them to “the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the Office of Management and Budget” for potential action:

1. Unconstitutional regulations and those that raise serious constitutional difficulties, exceeding the intended scope of government power.
2. Regs based on unlawful delegations of legislative power.
3. Regs based on faulty interpretation of underlying statutory authority or prohibition.
4. Those not authorized by clear statutory authority that implicate matters of social, political or economic significance.
5. Rules that impose significant costs on private parties not outweighed by public benefits.
6. Regs that harm the national interest by impeding technological innovation, infrastructure development, disaster response, inflation reduction, research and development, economic development, energy production, land use, and foreign policy objectives.
7. Finally, regs that impose undue burdens on small business and impede private enterprise and entrepreneurship.

To implement the executive orders, DOT is taking two immediate steps: opening public comment as described here, and creating an email inbox at Transportation.RegulatoryInfo@dot.gov. Individuals can use that inbox to identify for DOT existing regulations, guidance, reporting requirements, and other regulatory obligations that they believe can be modified or repealed, consistent with law.

In the Request for Information (RFI) published Thursday, DOT is looking to identify “regulations, guidance or reporting requirements that are obsolete, unnecessary, unjustified, or simply no longer make sense.” It’s also looking to identify regs, guidance or reporting requirements that should be altered or eliminated.

In filing comments, commenters are asked to provide, to the extent possible, supporting data or other information such as cost information, and specific suggestions regarding repeal, replacement, or modification.

DOT has provided 12 questions related to Trump’s executive orders that commenters can respond to.

Comments can be filed online here, or by emailing Transportation.RegulatoryInfo@dot.gov, and including “Regulatory Reform RFI” in the subject line. Written comments and information are requested on or before May 5.

DOT’s call for input follows a request from Trump and Elon Musk’s new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, for Americans to inform the top levels of the executive branch on waste, fraud and abuse at federal agencies.

Overdrive polling about what truckers would like to see DOGE tackle highlighted ELDs, truck parking and temporary visa/permanent work programs for foreign/immigrant drivers as among top issues they’d like to see addressed, among other areas of interest.

During President Trump’s first term, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee was tasked with making recommendations for regulations that were “outdated, unnecessary or ineffective,” and those that “impose costs that exceed benefits,” FMCSA said at the time.

FMCSA brought its own ideas to the meeting where the committee considered the task, and both FMCSA’s and MCSAC members’ recommendations from that effort can be seen here in discussion notes. Among regulatory provisions that were eliminated as a result were 1-5 a.m. periods required in any 34-hour restart under the hours of service (suspended by Congress prior), likewise requirements related to filing/storing no-defect Driver Vehicle Inspection Reports.

Members of the public were invited to provide written and/or in-person ideas to that committee at the time, yet few such ideas are reflected in the discussion notes, and it’s unclear what, if any, made it into the final report on the task, accessible via this link.

As noted above, Trump’s executive order during that term called for the elimination of just two regs for every new one instead of the 10 required during this term. Discussion among stakeholders and the FMCSA at that time, according to the MCSAC meeting discussion notes, acknowledged that “removing an obsolete rule allows the agency to add more safety regulations.”