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New York Times editorial opposes FMCSA nominee; hearing today

NEW YORK — One of the nation’s most influential newspapers today said Anne Ferro’s record as president and CEO of the Maryland Motor Truck Association should disqualify her from becoming the next administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

In an editorial placed online around 11 p.m. Tuesday and published in the print edition of The New York Times today, the newspaper said President Barack Obama made a “peculiar choice” when he nominated Ferro because on its face, her nomination “violates the spirit of Mr. Obama's decision to limit the ability of lobbyists to enter government as high officials and influence policy from within.”

The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee takes up Ferro’s nomination during a scheduled hearing today at 2:30 p.m. EDT.

“The order bars hiring anyone who lobbied an executive-branch agency within the past two years, which technically means federally registered lobbyists,” The Times editorial said. “But it is hard to see how naming a trucking industry insider like Ms. Ferro, the president of the Maryland affiliate of the American Trucking Associations, to lead the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration squares with Mr. Obama's promise of ‘a clean break’ from business as usual.

“This disconnect should trouble members of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee as they convene on Wednesday for Ms. Ferro's confirmation hearing. It was wrong, as several committee members noted at the time, for the Bush White House to install people from the trucking industry to regulate their own industry. It is no less wrong for Mr. Obama's to do it.”

The editorial noted that Ferro's record on road safety included some pluses.

The Times editors commended her work as the chief of Maryland's motor vehicle agency, from 1997 to 2003, where she implemented a graduated licensing system for new drivers and an ignition interlock program for drunken drivers.

“But her more relevant experience these past six years was in supporting the trucking industry's efforts to thwart and defeat policies and programs needed to protect the public and promote the health and safety of truck drivers,” the editorial continued. “Just in January, Ms. Ferro co-authored a letter to The Baltimore Sun essentially defending the Bush administration's loosening of regulations on drivers' schedules and driver fatigue in defiance of considerable evidence of danger and two court decisions.

“Ms. Ferro's record, we believe, is disqualifying. With more than 5,000 fatal truck crashes a year, Americans cannot afford conflicts of interest in the running of their truck safety agency.”

Lyndon Finney of The Trucker staff can be reached for comment at [email protected].

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