The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has released its latest Unified Agenda, providing the first comprehensive look in more than a year at the regulatory priorities of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). While the document offers insight into the agency’s direction, industry experts note that it outlines aspirations rather than binding commitments and leaves considerable uncertainty over which initiatives will ultimately move forward.
The Unified Agenda is typically published twice a year, but the second edition expected in 2025 was never released. This latest version includes 48 regulatory items ranging from commercial driver licensing and safety enforcement to autonomous vehicles and broker transparency.
Although the agenda carries no legal force and agencies are not required to meet the timelines they set for themselves, P. Sean Garney, co-director of Scopelitis Transportation Consulting, believes it remains a useful indicator of federal priorities.
According to Garney, the agenda serves as a reasonable measure of the issues the government is considering, even though many proposals have appeared repeatedly over several years without advancing to final regulations.
Sue Lawless, a partner at Scopelitis Law Firm and a former FMCSA executive, said the agenda intentionally provides only broad descriptions of planned actions, offering little historical context or explanation of the reasoning behind each proposal.
She also questioned whether the agency could realistically complete the large number of significant rulemakings included in the document.
Several initiatives are scheduled to reach the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) stage within weeks, but Lawless believes the workload is simply too extensive. In her view, many of the proposed actions represent complex regulatory projects that require substantial agency resources and cannot all be completed on the announced timetable.
From the trucking industry’s perspective, David Heller, Senior Vice President of Safety and Government Affairs at the Truckload Carriers Association (TCA), described the new agenda as one of the most ambitious he has seen.
The agenda closely aligns with recommendations outlined in TCA’s recently published white paper, “Proposals for Comprehensive Reform: Prioritizing Investments in Core Safety Mission.”
That report argues that while FMCSA is one of the federal government’s most influential transportation agencies, it remains one of the smallest operating administrations within the Department of Transportation despite overseeing hundreds of thousands of interstate carriers, millions of commercial drivers and a significant portion of the nation’s freight movement.
The paper contends that the agency continues to face staffing shortages, limited resources, outdated regulations and fragmented oversight systems, making it difficult to fully carry out its safety mission.
Heller acknowledged that FMCSA has increased its staffing in recent years but said it remains unclear whether those additions will be sufficient to support such an expansive regulatory agenda.
One area where Heller expects continued activity is enforcement.
He believes several proposals demonstrate that FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs intends to continue removing unsafe carriers from the nation’s highways through more aggressive enforcement efforts.
Among the notable items is a proposal to formally classify violations of English language proficiency requirements as an out-of-service offense.
Although President Donald Trump signed an executive order last year directing authorities to enforce the longstanding requirement that commercial drivers be proficient in English, the agenda suggests the administration may now move to incorporate those requirements directly into federal regulations.
Unlike many other initiatives, however, this proposal does not yet include a projected date for publishing either an NPRM or an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.
The agenda also introduces a new proposal aimed at strengthening the security of Commercial Driver’s Licenses (CDLs) and Commercial Learner’s Permits (CLPs).
As part of the rulemaking, FMCSA would update its regulations to improve procedures to verify documents, increase record retention requirements and bolster protections against fraud during the licensing process.
Another big one is autonomous trucking.
One of the key agenda items is a proposal for a regulatory framework for Automated Driving Systems (ADS) in commercial motor vehicles.
The proposal has appeared in previous agendas and follows public comment periods conducted in 2019 and 2023 on earlier advance rulemaking notices. The latest agenda targets August for the publication of a full NPRM.
Lawless noted that it remains unclear how FMCSA intends to regulate autonomous trucks and questioned whether the agency may move faster than the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which is also developing rules governing autonomous vehicle technology.
According to the agenda, the proposed regulations would prioritize safety, encourage innovation, establish a consistent regulatory framework for ADS-equipped commercial vehicles and clarify how autonomous driving systems should be treated differently from human operators.
Garney believes one of the industry’s biggest unresolved questions is whether an automated driving system should legally be considered the “driver” under existing regulations.
That distinction affects numerous operational requirements, including inspections and other duties that are currently assigned to human drivers.
Broker transparency also remains on the agency’s regulatory agenda.
The proposal, backed by both the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) and the Small Business in Transportation Coalition (SBTC), would require freight brokers to provide electronic transaction records to carriers within 48 hours of a completed load.
The measure had previously been advanced to a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in 2024, with a reopened public comment period in February 2025. The FMCSA later delayed further action, but the proposal remains on the agency’s Unified Agenda, a sign that it’s still in the agency’s sights despite no recent regulatory activity.
