Donald Trump resumed control of the nation’s federal agencies this week. With a change in administration, what will agency management look like for 2025?
This is the first part of a three-part series on 2025's regulatory outlook. You can read part two here and part three here.
Agency rulemakings will likely slow down under a Trump administration, but there are still several key regulations that may impact carriers this year.
Industry experts from Scopelitis Law Firm and the Truckload Carriers Association shared their outlook on how the new administration will manage commercial carriers.
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Fewer agency rulemakings
Agency rulemakings in general will likely slow down through 2025 and the rest of Trump’s term. EPA and the U.S. Department of Transportation—including its subsidiaries the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration—will likely see fewer new regulations.
One of the most significant parts of another Trump administration is the return of agency deregulation. In the first month of his first term, Trump issued an executive order requiring a “two-for-one” deregulation effort. For every one new regulation with significant costs, two others needed to be removed.
Agencies move slower between presidents
The leadership transition should also slow down rulemaking processes, particularly in early 2025. Each new president involves widespread replacement of top agency officials.
“Somebody comes into the seat to lead FMCSA and they have to be caught up to speed on where they are on the rulemakings, brought up to speed on the rulemaking process and where they stand right now, as well as understanding all the background of those rules that were going on in the Biden administration that may or may not move forward in the Trump administration,” Heller said.
Trump already issued a hiring freeze and regulatory freeze on the first day of his administration. If the freezes mirror those of his first term, they may remain in effect for months.
“We are wondering if something like that still comes into play,” David Heller, VP of government affairs for TCA, told FleetOwner. “It was not necessarily agency specific. It could be two DOT rules that could be rolled back, that may not necessarily have anything to do with trucking, in order to institute a new rule that did pertain to trucking.”
The “two-for-one” order had a small impact on new regulatory costs, and Trump might pursue a more extreme measure this time. In December, he suggested a “ten-for-one” order for his next term.
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Rulemakings carriers should watch
Transportation agencies will continue to develop new regulations, despite the slowdown. Regulators have several major new pending rules that could affect commercial carriers. Fleet managers should watch the following rules in 2025.
Broker transparency
FMCSA may issue a final rule on broker transparency in 2025. The agency issued a notice of proposed rulemaking in November 2024, “Transparency in Property Broker Transactions,” which makes it more difficult for brokers to avoid their obligation to disclose records to carriers.
Carriers have a right to the records of freight brokers’ transactions by law, but brokers use several workarounds to avoid real disclosure. This includes contract waivers, slow and manual paperwork, and an implied threat of retaliation. The NPRM proposed four steps to weaken brokers’ paperwork approach but did not address contract waivers or retaliation.
Scopelitis’s Sharma noted that broker transparency is a uniquely intrusive regulation but is likely supported under the second Trump administration.
“FMCSA’s recent proposed rulemaking is a case of regulatory intrusion into a transportation marketplace that Congress deregulated and intended to leave up to the markets. No analogous government mandate to service cost disclosure comes to mind, but that is what the FMCSA has proposed mandating,” Sharma said. “That said, it’s worth recalling that the first Trump administration elected to publish the petitions submitted by OOIDA and the Small Business Trucking Coalition, thus essentially initiating the rulemaking process.”
FMCSA will likely publish a final rule on broker transparency within the year.
Independent contractor rule
The U.S. Department of Labor’s independent contractor rule, which lays out how the department differentiates between employee and contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act, is a contentious issue in trucking. Independent contractor classification is a key policy issue for most trucking industry groups.
The first Trump administration’s DOL issued a final rule outlining its interpretation of FLSA in 2020. The definition departed from precedent established by case law in favor of an agency standard that was simpler and erred toward contractor status. The Biden administration issued a rule overriding that interpretation in 2024. The new rule mostly coincided with the original but moved closer to existing case law and, because of this, erred closer to employee status.
The Trump DOL now has the opportunity to issue another overriding rule, returning to an interpretation that resembles the 2020 final rule.
“We expect the president-elect to revert back to what he did in his previous administration and support the independent contractors as they are today,” Heller said.
However, this Trump term is different from the first. Labor issues may not be as easily predicted.
Trump’s pick for Secretary of Labor, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, was one of only three Republicans who voted against party lines in favor of the PRO Act. Trump also played a surprise pro-labor role weeks before his inauguration when he supported the International Longshoremen’s Association union in their negotiations with dock employers.
Despite the pro-labor twists in Trump’s ramp-up to presidency, Sharma also expects the 2020 rule to return.
“We anticipate that rule to be reinstated via the current multiple litigations challenging the Biden 2024 IC Test Rule,” Sharma said. “People were surprised by the nomination of former Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, one of three Republican House members to vote for organized labor’s PRO Act, but we still believe a California-like ABC test (requiring new legislation) for federal wage and hour purposes is unlikely.”
CSA scores
FMCSA is working on an overhaul to its Compliance, Safety, Accountability program. The agency proposed major revisions to CSA scores in early 2023 and announced further changes in December 2024. FMCSA may formally publish the revisions as a final rule in 2025.
CSA scoring through the Safety Measurement System is a major component of modern fleet operations, influencing everything from client relations and insurance rates to federal investigations.
Trucking industry stakeholders have criticized CSA scoring for not addressing how each state differs in its enforcement priorities.
“The biggest issue with CSA is almost always going to be its correctness to eliminate geographical biases,” Heller said. “As an industry, we shouldn’t be afraid to have our safety systems measured at the carrier level; we should insist it be done correctly.”
While FMCSA has regularly tweaked CSA scoring since 2010, the latest update still does not normalize for geography.
It is still unclear when FMCSA will publish the CSA overhaul final rule, but Scopelitis sees a good chance it will arrive this year.
“We anticipate the FMCSA will move forward with this proposal in 2025, even under a new administration,” Chris Eckhart, attorney with Scopelitis, told FleetOwner.
While the industry waits for a final rule, the agency allows carriers to preview what their new scoring might look like through the CSA Prioritization Preview website.
Crash Preventability Determination Program
FMCSA is also developing a final rule to update its Crash Preventability Determination Program. If a carrier suffers a crash and then shows FMCSA that it was non-preventable, that incident won’t affect the carrier’s CSA score.
The program began in 2020 and received regular adjustments since. FMCSA issued a notice for its latest update in December. The update adds four new crash types to the program’s existing 16 crash types, expanding which types of incidents are eligible under the program. The new crash types include accidents where another motorist lost control and where a video demonstrates the sequence of events.
“With motor carriers’ increasing use of onboard cameras, this additional crash type is a significant improvement to the CPDP,” Eckhart said.
Speed limiters
FMCSA and NHTSA are still working on a joint rulemaking to mandate speed limiters in heavy commercial vehicles. The agencies first issued a notice of proposed rulemaking in 2016.
“Speed limiters have been kicked down the road several times,” Heller said. “There were several due dates in which the agency was going to come out with a supplementary notice of proposed rulemaking.”
In the fall 2024 regulatory agenda, FMCSA and NHTSA suggested they would issue a supplementary notice of proposed rulemaking in mid-2025. If successful in publishing an NPRM, it would still take several months or years before the agencies issue a final rule. The final rule would then allow several months or years before the limiter requirements for OEMs take effect.
In addition to rulemaking delays, the agencies have also not yet shared the exact speed limit that their mandate would set. FMCSA initially proposed 68 mph in 2023 but quickly revoked the number.
“Because of the constant delay in issuing the SNPRM, we’re not wholly convinced that this rulemaking is going to be moving forward,” Heller said.
AEB mandate
FMCSA and NHTSA are planning a final rule to mandate automatic emergency braking systems on new heavy trucks.
The agencies issued a joint NPRM for the AEB rule in 2023. If the agencies do release the AEB final rule in 2025, it would still take multiple years to affect manufacturers. When NHTSA issued an AEB final rule for passenger vehicles in 2024, it set the effective date as September 2029.
AEB systems are also already popular among large carriers.
“I think the tea leaves almost always read that innovators are going to beat regulators,” Heller said. “And AEB is an innovation that carriers are already using.”
Carrier registration system
FMCSA is still working on its next version of an online carrier registration system, which could transform registration processes this year.
Carriers have to use several separate paper forms to manage and update their information. The agency hopes a new registration system can simplify carrier registration processes, forms, and verification through a single online platform.
The new FMCSA Registration System, or FRS, would replace the Unified Registration System (URS), which suffered from poor implementation. FMCSA first planned to develop URS in 1996, created the platform with only partial functionality in 2015, and then never finished it. URS today still only serves first-time applicants with their initial registrations.
FRS, if it lives up to the hype, would integrate several forms into a simplified series of questions and add more robust verification to combat fraud. FMCSA suggested it would launch FRS sometime in 2025.
Jeremy Wolfe | Editor
Editor Jeremy Wolfe joined the FleetOwner team in February 2024. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point with majors in English and Philosophy. He previously served as Editor for Endeavor Business Media's Water Group publications.
