The National Owner Operators Association, the nation’s largest independent association of truckers, unveiled its legislative agenda this week. Zeroing in on large-scale freight broker reform, Boston’s group has identified two pieces of legislation integral to their agenda.

The first item, The Motor Carrier Safety Selection Standard Act, lead by U.S. Senators Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Deb Fischer (R-Nebraska), seeks to “establish a Safety Fitness Determination test for shippers and brokers to ensure trucking companies are licensed, registered and insured.”

Boston has advised his group to oppose it – full stop.

“We’ve had major accidents involving truckers in Texas and South Carolina. Their senators have been silent.” he notes. “We welcome their attention and their overall care, but we wont hold our breath.”

Boston previously authored a piece highlighting Taylor Swift’s $5 million donations to truckers working on her Eras Tours. His highlighting of the overburdening and generally neglectful regulations truckers experience fuels the second action item supported by the NOOA, 2022’s H.R. 2517, the Guaranteeing Overtime for Truckers Act (“GOTA”).

“Most truckers have to sacrifice time, safety or money to compete with large freight groups. We have independent owner-operators at risk of losing their livelihoods because of government overregulation,” said Boston. The Act would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to remove the overtime wages exemption for certain employees.

“Having GOTA would not only be a revitalization effort to our industry, it would be a step forward in having lawmakers take our vital supply chain issues more seriously,” said Boston.

Boston is not stopping there: large-scale freight broker reform is also on his list. Following the bankruptcy of Surge Transportation and the closure of Yellow, two of the largest freight entities nationally, Boston was quick to point out the many failures that could be addressed by broker reform.

“This is not 1980 and brokers like Surge Transportation create a risk for the supply chain with uncertainty,” he wrote to the American Journal of Transportation.

“The [Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration] must be forced to regulate brokers and audit them to make sure they are able to carry out the obligations of the business that they operate in.”