FMCSA Broker Transparency Rule Sent to White

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration sent its broker transparency rulemaking to the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs on August 27. This clears the last internal checkpoint before publication, moving a document that had missed two target dates this year into the final stage of executive branch review.

Reaching OIRA does not make the proposal public. The review is where the White House and other federal agencies examine the draft before it publishes in the Federal Register. The text remains confidential until it clears. The submission establishes that FMCSA has finished drafting.

Why the Timing is Significant

The Unified Agenda entry for the rule had listed a supplemental notice for July 2026. Before that, the agency had targeted May. The August 27 submission is the first concrete movement in the file since the comment period closed in March 2025.

Executive Order 12866 sets a review period of up to 90 days, which the agency head may ask to extend once by 30 days. Reviews frequently conclude sooner. The order also allows OIRA to conclude a review by returning the rule to the agency for reconsideration rather than clearing it, so submission is not the same as approval.

While a rule sits at OIRA, outside parties may request meetings with the office to discuss it. For the brokerage and carrier organizations that have spent six years on this file, the review window is the last opportunity to make a case before the text is fixed for public comment.

What the Proposal Would Address

The supplemental notice builds on the proposal FMCSA published on November 20, 2024. That document proposed requiring property brokers to keep transaction records in electronic format and to provide a copy to a motor carrier or shipper within 48 hours of a request. It proposed expanding the required contents of those records.

The petitions that started the rulemaking asked for more. The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association requested that brokers provide an electronic copy of each transaction record automatically within 48 hours of the contracted service being completed, without the carrier having to ask. The Small Business in Transportation Coalition requested that FMCSA bar brokers from coercing or requiring parties to waive the right to review the record as a condition of doing business.

FMCSA acknowledged in the 2024 document that its provisions differed from what the petitioners requested. That gap is the substance a supplemental notice would be expected to revisit.

The underlying right is decades old. Section 371.3 has long required brokers to keep records of each transaction and given each party the right to review the record. The fight is over enforcement and over waiver clauses that appear routinely in broker carrier contracts.

The Comment Record and Process

FMCSA drew roughly 5,000 comments on the November 2024 proposal. At SBTC’s request the agency reopened the comment period on February 18, 2025, and that reopening closed on March 20, 2025 after producing roughly 2,000 more. The combined docket runs close to 7,000 comments.

Rather than finalize on that record, FMCSA chose to prepare a supplemental proposal. That decision has a cost in time. A supplemental notice reopens public comment, which places any final rule at least one full comment cycle and one further round of review beyond publication of the text now at OIRA. The process began when FMCSA sought comment on the two petitions on August 19, 2020.

What Happens Next

Nothing changes for carriers yet. Section 371.3 stands as written. Waiver clauses remain a matter of contract and litigation, and no new obligation attaches to brokers until a final rule takes effect.

The next observable events are the conclusion of the OIRA review and then publication in the Federal Register opening the comment period. Carriers and broker organizations that want to shape the proposal have a decision to make about whether to request a meeting with OIRA while the text is still under review.

The proposal moving to OIRA is the first hard evidence in eighteen months that the broker transparency rulemaking is progressing. It puts a public comment period within reach for the first time since March 2025. What clears that review will be a proposal rather than a rule, so the practical terms governing access to transaction records are still at least a full comment cycle and a final rulemaking away from changing.