Cynthia Quarterman, right, testifies yesterday during a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on her nomination to be the Transportation Department's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration Administrator. Anne Ferro, left, is nominated to be the Transportation Department's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Administrator. (AP Photo – Susan Walsh)
President Barack Obama's nomination of a trucking industry lobbyist to head the agency that regulates the industry drew fire Wednesday from senators and safety advocates.
Anne Ferro, the president and CEO of the Maryland Motor Truck Assn. for the past six years, was named to head the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, a troubled agency that has been widely criticized for allowing safety recommendations to languish for years without action.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), told Ferro at a Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday, that the motor carrier administration is "an agency in dire need of reform."
"Given your ties, Ms. Ferro, to the trucking industry... I am concerned about your ability to take the bold action we need to keep Americans safe," Lautenberg said.
Ferro described herself as a safety advocate, pointing to her record as head of Maryland's motor vehicle administration, where she pushed for phased-in driving privileges for teens and interlock devices to prevent drunk drivers from operating vehicles.
“My passion is highway safety," Ferro said.
The Truck Safety Coalition, an umbrella group for organizations concerned about dangers posed by trucks, described Ferro in a statement submitted to the Senate commerce committee as an “apologist for the trucking industry.”
Ferro has defended a Bush administration decision to increase the number of consecutive hours truck drivers can work and the number of hours per week a driver can be on road.
Chairman Jay Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) noted, “For everyone on the road, we have a responsibility to make safety priority number one. I have long been a strong advocate for road and truck safety and I have concerns about the agency’s current focus on safety. West Virginians, like many others in largely rural states, rely heavily on highway transportation to get to work, to visit their families, and, often, to do their jobs. Making sure that they are safe from the perils of tired truckers and unsafe motor vehicles is of the utmost importance to me and many members of this Committee.”
Ferro responded, “The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s mandate is to reduce the incidence and severity of crashes involving trucks and buses. This has proven to be a daunting challenge in a multi-sector industry where segments of it have such low barriers to entry that competition for business is sometimes characterized as a race to the bottom; but it’s a challenge we can and must overcome, and strategies to do so have been recommended by a wide range of stakeholders including agency personnel, the National Transportation Safety Board, the agency’s own Inspector General, survivors advocacy groups, law enforcement agencies, the best drivers, owner-operators, and motor carrier companies. Measures that work have been demonstrated and the strong safety records of the drivers and carriers who use them give witness to their effectiveness.”
On the pipelines topic, Quarterman said, “The agency is in its infancy, having been established only three years ago to ensure the safe and environmentally sound transportation of hazardous materials through our country. I believe that my more than 20 years of experience, in private practice and government service, involving the transportation of hazardous materials by pipeline provides me with the necessary substantive knowledge to lead this agency forward….”
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