Broker and Freight Forwarder Financial Responsibility; Extension of Compliance Date

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Parts 386 and 387</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FMCSA-2024-0280]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2126-AC76</RIN> <SUBJECT>Broker and Freight Forwarder Financial Responsibility; Extension of Compliance Date</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM). <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> FMCSA proposes to amend its November 16, 2023, final rule, “Broker and Freight Forwarder Financial Responsibility,” by extending the compliance date for certain provisions from January 16, 2025, to January 16, 2026. This action is being proposed because FMCSA has determined that only its forthcoming online registration system will be used to accept filings and track notifications, and this functionality will not be added to its legacy systems. As the new system is not expected to be available before January 16, 2025, FMCSA proposes to extend the compliance date to provide regulated entities time to begin using and familiarizing themselves with the system before compliance is required. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before November 19, 2024. Comments should be limited to the proposed change in the compliance date. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by Docket Number FMCSA-2024-0280 using any one of the following methods: • <E T="03">Federal Rulemaking Portal:</E> Go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the online instructions for submitting comments. • <E T="03">Mail:</E> Dockets Operations, U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building, Ground Floor, Washington, DC 20590-0001. • <E T="03">Hand Delivery or Courier:</E> Dockets Operations, U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building, Ground Floor, Washington, DC 20590-0001, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. To be sure someone is there to help you, please call (202) 366-9317 or (202) 366-9826 before visiting Dockets Operations. • <E T="03">Fax:</E> (202) 493-2251. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Ana Alvarez, Financial Analyst, Office of Registration, Financial Responsibility Filings Division, FMCSA, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building, 6th Floor, Washington, DC 20590; (202) 366-0401; <E T="03">ana.alvarez@dot.gov.</E> If you have questions on viewing or submitting material to the docket, call Dockets Operations at (202) 366-9826. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> FMCSA organizes this NPRM as follows: <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Public Participation and Request for Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Submitting Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Viewing Comments and Documents</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Privacy</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Executive Summary</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Purpose and Summary of the Regulatory Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Costs and Benefits</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Abbreviations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Legal Basis</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Discussion of Proposed Rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VII. Regulatory Analyses</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. E.O. 12866 (Regulatory Planning and Review), E.O. 13563 (Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review), E.O. 14094 (Modernizing Regulatory Review), and DOT Regulatory Policies and Procedures</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Regulatory Flexibility Act (Small Entities)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Assistance for Small Entities</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Paperwork Reduction Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. E.O. 13132 (Federalism)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Privacy</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">H. E.O. 13175 (Indian Tribal Governments)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">I. National Environmental Policy Act of 1969</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">J. Rulemaking Summary</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Public Participation and Request for Comments</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Submitting Comments</HD> If you submit a comment, please include the docket number for this NPRM (FMCSA-2024-0280), indicate the specific section of this document to which your comment applies, and provide a reason for each suggestion or recommendation. You may submit your comments and material online or by fax, mail, or hand delivery, but please use only one of these means. FMCSA recommends that you include your name and a mailing address, an email address, or a phone number in the body of your document so FMCSA can contact you if there are questions regarding your submission. To submit your comment online, go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/docket/FMCSA-2024-0280/document,</E> click on this NPRM, click “Comment,” and type your comment into the text box on the following screen. If you submit your comments by mail or hand delivery, submit them in an unbound format, no larger than 8 <FR>1/2</FR> by 11 inches, suitable for copying and electronic filing. FMCSA will consider all comments and material received during the comment period. <HD SOURCE="HD3">Confidential Business Information (CBI)</HD> CBI is commercial or financial information that is both customarily and actually treated as private by its owner. Under the Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. 552), CBI is exempt from public disclosure. If your comments responsive to the NPRM contain commercial or financial information that is customarily treated as private, that you actually treat as private, and that is relevant or responsive to the NPRM, it is important that you clearly designate the submitted comments as CBI. Please mark each page of your submission that constitutes CBI as “PROPIN” to indicate it contains proprietary information. FMCSA will treat such marked submissions as confidential under the Freedom of Information Act, and they will not be placed in the public docket of the NPRM. Submissions containing CBI should be sent to Mr. Brian Dahlin, Chief, Regulatory Evaluation Division, Office of Policy, FMCSA, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590-0001 or via email at <E T="03">brian.g.dahlin@dot.gov.</E> At this time, you need not send a duplicate hardcopy of your electronic CBI submissions to FMCSA headquarters. Any comments FMCSA receives not specifically designated as CBI will be placed in the public docket for this rulemaking. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Viewing Comments and Documents</HD> To view any documents mentioned as being available in the docket, go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/docket/FMCSA-2024-0280/document</E> and choose the document to review. To view comments, click this NPRM, then click “Browse Comments.” If you do not have access to the internet, you may view the docket online by visiting Dockets Operations on the ground floor of the DOT West Building, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590-0001, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. To be sure someone is there to help you, please call (202) 366-9317 or (202) 366-9826 before visiting Dockets Operations. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Privacy</HD> In accordance with 5 U.S.C. 553(c), DOT solicits comments from the public to better inform its regulatory process. DOT posts these comments, including any personal information the commenter provides, to <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> as described in the system of records notice (DOT/ALL 14—Federal Docket Management System (FDMS)), which can be reviewed at <E T="03">https://www.transportation.gov/individuals/privacy/privacy-act-system-recordsnotices.</E> The comments are posted without edit and are searchable by the name of the submitter. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Executive Summary</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Purpose and Summary of the Regulatory Action</HD> FMCSA proposes to extend certain compliance dates in the 2023 final rule, “Broker and Freight Forwarder Financial Responsibility” (88 FR 78656, Nov. 16, 2023), from January 16, 2025, to January 16, 2026, creating a single compliance date for all provisions in the rule. This extension will ensure that parties required to comply with the regulations have sufficient opportunity to register in the new system and begin using it, and that FMCSA is able to properly process and respond to such filings. The provisions affected by this extension are: 1. Immediate suspension of broker/freight forwarder operating authority. When a broker or freight forwarder's available financial security falls below $75,000, FMCSA shall suspend its operating authority registration. 2. Surety or trust responsibilities in cases of broker/freight forwarder financial failure or insolvency. If a surety/trustee becomes aware that a broker or freight forwarder is experiencing financial failure or insolvency, it must notify FMCSA and initiate cancelation of the financial responsibility. 3. Enforcement authority and penalties for financial responsibility providers who do not comply with the regulations. FMCSA is incorporating the statutorily mandated penalties into its regulations. After notice and an opportunity for a hearing, surety companies or financial institutions who violate 49 CFR 387.307 will be ineligible to provide financial responsibility for 3 years and may also be subject to a civil penalty. This extension is necessary so that FMCSA can implement its new online registration system and make it available to entities required to register and make filings in the system. This extension is also intended to provide users with an opportunity to begin using, and become familiar with, the new online registration system before compliance with th ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 30k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━