The Trucking Alliance, which in terms of numbers is one of the smaller industry lobbying and support groups but which includes some of the bigger players in trucking, has long focused on safety issues in its efforts to shift public policy.
After a tumultuous 2025 in the intersection where trucking, safety and politics all came together in often unexpected ways, the group is laying out its agenda not just for 2026 but for years to come, freely acknowledging there are some shifts in the regulatory landscape that will take a few years to ferment and develop.
In this three-part joint video and editorial series, Freightwaves is presenting highlights of an interview editor at large John Kingston conducted with key members of the Trucking Alliance’s leadership team: Steve Williams, the co-founder and president of the Trucking Alliance, as well as the chairman and CEO of carrier Maverick USA; Lane Kidd, managing director at the Trucking Alliance; Greer Woodruff, executive vice president of safety, sustainability, and maintenance at J.B. Hunt Transport Services (NASDAQ: JBHT); and Brett Sant, senior vice president at Knight Swift (NYSE: KNX).
The full interview with the Trucking Alliance leaders can be found here.
Part one dealt with issues that would have their greatest impact on drivers in the cabs. Part two deals with suggested safety steps that would mostly need to be taken by carriers or have their greatest impact on them.
This final part is about broader regulatory changes. While separating out regulatory changes and declaring that they affect drivers or carriers is a somewhat futile pursuit–it’s all a connected ecosystem–these divisions can make it easier to keep track of the proposed changes.
Insurance
It has been noted repeatedly in discussions about trucking that when the industry was deregulated in 1980, the minimum insurance requirement for a carrier was set at $750,000.
Today, the minimum insurance requirement for a carrier is…$750,000. And the Trucking Alliance sees that as a big problem.
“The theory then was that the insurance industry would help regulate those carriers,” Sant said. But with so many of the carriers that provide capacity operating with a small fleet, Sant added, “they’re really not underwritten the way you would maybe expect.”
Sant cited a carrier he did not identify by name with about a 15% to 20% market share of the trucking insurance market as having clients with an average fleet size of two power units or less. “There really isn’t an in-depth underwriting that takes place to appraise the risk of that carrier,” Sant said.
The recommended course of action by the Trucking Alliance is to “adjust the minimum financial responsibility requirement to $2.9 million.” Where did that number come from? It’s the 1980 minimum requirement adjusted for inflation.
After that, according to the Trucking Alliance’s recommendations, the figure would be adjusted on the basis of a medical inflation index.
The question is whether Congress would ever undertake that step. It has been done in certain states; New Jersey is one of the largest and the most recent.
Sant and Lane said the Trucking Alliance has been looking at ways that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) could raise the minimum without Congressional action. “We are actively working to provide the data to FMCSA to help them assess the issue and determine how they might increase those minimums and to what extent,” Sant said.
English language proficiency
In the video interview with FreightWaves, the issue of English language proficiency was discussed mostly tangentially, in particular that it has become a gateway to a focus on the issue of cabotage. “I think that the efforts around English language proficiency probably brought this to light quicker than it might otherwise have come to light,” Woodruff said.
In its white paper, the Trucking Alliance lists recommendations on English language proficiency in several different sections.
One requirement would put some onus back on insurers or their agents: “Require certificates (of English proficiency) delivered directly by the insurer/agent and continuous monitoring for lapses or reductions in coverage.”
Other recommendations include “(enforcing) identify proofing and anti-fraud controls,” and extending identity proofing out to brokers, “closing the door on identity fraud and serial reapplications.”
Under its recommendations for cabotage regulatory enforcement, the Alliance says the industry needs to “advocate for clear, enforceable English language proficiency standards for all commercial drivers operating in the U.S. This will ensure effective communication during roadside inspections, emergency situations, and daily operations—critical for maintaining highway safety and compliance.”
ELD enforcement
One of the Trump administration policies that has been an unexpected shift are the number of ELDs that FMCSA has pulled off the market.
The Trucking Alliance was firmly aligned behind the launch of the ELD mandate. Kidd said when the rule was imposed, FMCSA “decided that instead of us trying to certify every single manufacturer, let’s just let them self-ceritify and promise on the honor system that they work.”
Over time, he said, in a three to four year period there were 88,000 documented cases where a faulty ELD could not transmit its data to an officer making a roadside stop.
The only way to fix that, Kidd said, is for “FMCSA to do a very bold thing.” It already has gotten a start on it with the withdrawal of FMCSA approval for dozens of ELDs. But going forward, Kidd said, FMCSA needs to “require those ELDs to recertify and to contract with an independent third party certification lab, and require the ELDs to go back through the channel, as they never have had to do, to certify that their ELD will work.”
Kidd said FMCSA is willing to contract with third party providers for that certification. “I think there’s a willingness now for FMCSA to say, no, there’s better stuff in the private sector than we can do,” Kidd said. “They at least seem willing to talk about it.”
More articles by John Kingston
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LTL carrier Peninsula adding a 2-state surcharge for regulatory burdens
Trump administration backing C.H. Robinson on broker liability before SCOTUS
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