Next month will mark six years since hundreds of truck drivers traveled to Washington, D.C., to protest the lack of broker transparency in the trucking industry.
It will also be six years since the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association petitioned the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to begin enforcing existing broker regulations and to close loopholes that brokers were using to evade the rules.
In those six years, many steps have been taken to advance the enforcement of broker transparency, but nothing has reached the finish line.
FMCSA is projected to unveil an updated notice of proposed rulemaking on broker transparency in May. Will this finally lead to something that will address a longstanding problem for small-business truckers?
Brief history
Broker transparency regulation 371.3 has been on the books for decades, but it hasn’t been enforced.
Regulation 371.3 requires brokers to keep records of each transaction. Even more, each party to an individual transaction has the right to review the record. Truckers say that brokers routinely evade the rule by either requiring waivers or telling carriers they can’t provide the records electronically.
Without transparency, truckers are at a disadvantage in receiving fair rates and may be victimized by bogus claims.
As the pandemic was in full swing in the spring of 2020, truckers decided they had reached their limit. That led to the protests in Washington, D.C, and OOIDA’s petition.
Action wasn’t immediate, but OOIDA persisted. Following the petition, the Association never let FMCSA forget about the need for broker transparency.
OOIDA participated in a broker freight listening session in October 2020. And in 2021, OOIDA opposed the Transportation Intermediaries Association’s petition to eliminate the existing transparency rules.
FMCSA received formal letters from OOIDA in September 2022, March 2023 and August 2023. OOIDA also participated in a listening session on broker issues at the 2023 Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Ky., and mentioned the issue in formal comments for other broker-related rulemakings. Additionally, the Association’s board members met with FMCSA officials in November 2022 and April 2024 to discuss broker transparency and broker fraud. Basically, OOIDA took every opportunity to keep the issue on the front burner.
Finally, in November 2024, FMCSA issued a notice of proposed rulemaking.
The proposal included four provisions to improve broker transparency. Specifically, it would require brokers to keep their records in electronic format and to provide a copy of those records within 48 hours upon request. The proposal also affirmed that brokers have a regulatory obligation to provide transaction records that should include information about charges and payments related to the shipment, as well as a description, amount and dates, plus any claims related to the shipment.
However, once the new administration took over in 2025, it decided not to advance the proposal to a final rule. Instead, FMCSA said it would release a new proposal.
So, what’s next?
According to FMCSA’s regulatory agenda, the agency plans to issue a second notice of proposed rulemaking in May, making it six years after the protest and OOIDA’s petition.
Land Line asked FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs about broker transparency during the Mid-America Trucking Show in March, but he declined to provide specific details about the forthcoming proposal. However, Barrs said he is looking forward to reading the comments from industry stakeholders.
“I welcome those comments as I continue to learn and our agency begins to understand better how we can better serve in that particular area of trucking,” Barrs told Land Line.
Although it is unclear what the updated notice will propose, the timeline means that it could be 2027 or later before a final rule takes effect.
OOIDA remains determined to ensure that FMCSA completes a final rule that is fair to small-business truckers.
“Ignoring 371.3 regulations has directly led to an asymmetry of information between carriers, shippers and brokers,” OOIDA wrote in its November 2024 comments. “An asymmetry of information not only creates an inequitable playing field between carriers and brokers but jeopardizes carriers’ ability to know if they are hauling fair-value loads.”
OOIDA Executive Vice President Lewie Pugh relayed the problem to a Senate committee in July 2025.
“Unfortunately, brokers have a long history of deliberately and blatantly circumventing transparency requirements,” Pugh wrote in his submitted testimony. “In order to protect against fraud and scams, we tell our members that they should closely examine documentation and verify that all information is legitimate. If brokers are allowed to continue evading federal transparency regulations, it makes it difficult for carriers to determine who is adhering to the rules or who may be trying to scam them. In short, practices that undermine trust and transparency will make it harder to determine who is a bad actor.” LL
Land Line Associate Editor Tyson Fisher contributed to his report.
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