New bill aims to ban predatory truck leasing

WASHINGTON — Legislation has been introduced banning predatory lease-purchase programs used by trucking companies to generate higher profits at the expense of drivers.

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The bill, introduced on Wednesday by U.S. Rep. Julia Brownley, D-Calif., would amend federal regulations “to prohibit the use of predatory commercial motor vehicle lease-purchase programs by certain motor carriers, and for other purposes,” according to a bill summary.

The legislation acts on the first recommendation included in a report submitted to Congress in January by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Truck Leasing Task Force (TLTF): “Congress should ban CMV lease-purchase agreements as irredeemable tools of fraud and driver oppression that threaten a safe national transportation system and diminish the number of truck drivers attracted to and who stay in the trucking industry,” the report states. “Such a prohibition would be the most efficient and effective remedy to stop the damage created by lease-purchase programs.”

The report culminated a series of meetings held by TLTF between July 2023 and December 2024. The task force was created by the U.S. Department of Transportation to investigate the prevalence of contracts drawn up by trucking companies to purposely take advantage of drivers.

While some task force members saw lease purchase programs as a potential path to small-business ownership, information collected by the group revealed that more often “they cause widespread harm without offering meaningful scale opportunities for truck and small business ownership,” the report states.

“The programs create an inequitable power dynamic that carriers exploit for lower-cost manpower,” the report asserts, by shifting the expense of buying, maintaining and operating tractors onto the driver.

“Carrier lease-purchase programs are designed for motor carriers to obtain greater profits than they would earn from comparably experienced employees in straight independent contractor or driver arrangements.”

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, which was represented on the task force, agreed with TLTF’s findings of driver exploitation and that banning such programs is past due.

“Regrettably, these have been around forever, and they’ve been used through the years to run through people like oats through a horse,” OOIDA President Todd Spencer told FreightWaves. “And when drivers get sucked into these programs they end up working their butts off trying to survive.”