Trucking interests are applauding legislation introduced late last week that would prevent the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) from taking shortcuts in the process if they intend to set standards for screening and testing professional drivers for sleep apnea.
Rep. Larry Bucshon, R-IN, and Dan Lipinski, D-IL, introduced legislation to ensure that any federal standards governing sleep apnea in truck and bus drivers would be through the conventional rulemaking process instead of guidance that would allow FMCSA to bring a sleep apnea screening rule more quickly.
Both the American Trucking Assns. (ATA) and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Assn. (OOIDA) are supporting the legislation that trucking groups say will prevent FMCSA from shortcutting the rulemaking process.
“ATA believes that if the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration wants to regulate sleep apnea, it should do so through the normal, established regulatory process rather than through informal guidance,” said ATA president and CEO Bill Graves. “The rulemaking process allows for medical experts, the regulated community, including professional drivers, to provide valuable data and input for the agency to consider in developing its regulations. A formal rulemaking will also require an analysis of the benefits and costs of regulating sleep apnea, an analysis not required for the issuance of guidance.”
“This is not an insignificant step,” Graves said. “There are more than 3 million professional truck drivers and the cost of screening, diagnosis and treatment for sleep apnea could easily exceed $1 billion annually. Taking a step as potentially costly as that shouldn’t be undertaken lightly and outside of the normal processes.”
The bipartisan bill will ensure that any FMCSA sleep apnea policy takes into account costs to the industry and consider the best screening, testing, and treatment methods versus an overly broad approach that was initially issued by the FMCSA in since-withdrawn guidance from April 2012, according to OOIDA.
The bill does not require FMCSA to issue any policy or regulation regarding sleep apnea. It simply ensures that any policy issued includes a thorough analysis of the prevalence of obstructive sleep apnea among truck and bus drivers, the range of possible actions to address the problem, or the costs and benefits of any policy, OOIDA points out.
“The best policy is for the agency to use the rulemaking process already in place rather than side-stepping it,” said Todd Spencer, OOIDA executive vice president. “With the potential cost to trucking running north of $1 billion without the proven safety improvement, guidance is not a practice we can support.”
“Small-business truckers applaud Reps. Bucshon and Lipinski for their efforts on this important issue to truckers and to small businesses,” said Spencer. “H.R. 3095 is common-sense legislation that has the support of the entire industry. That fact alone should send a strong signal that anything FMCSA does regarding sleep apnea should absolutely consider the costs such a policy will pass on to truckers, especially more experienced and safer drivers.”
OOIDA holds the position that any truck driver who has symptoms or signs of sleep apnea should seek the advice of their own primary care physician. OOIDA has been opposed to suggested mandates that require testing solely based on Body Mass Index (BMI), and requirements that truckers use only expensive medical devices to treat the condition when other less expensive alternatives may be as effective. According to research on sleep apnea published by FMCSA, there is no statistical evidence to suggest that the presence of sleep apnea significantly increases the likelihood or the risk of motor vehicle crashes.
Sleep apnea is a breathing-related sleep disorder that causes brief interruptions of breathing during sleep. These pauses in breathing can last at least 10 seconds or more and can occur up to 400 times a night.
FMCSA says that as many 28% of commercial driver’s license (CDL) holders have sleep apnea. According to FMCSA, research indicates that untreated sleep apnea puts drivers at increased risk for motor vehicle crashes. One study found that drivers with untreated sleep apnea did worse on performance tests than healthy alert subjects whose blood alcohol concentrations was above the federal limit for driving a commercial motor vehicle, FMCSA states.
Joining ATA and OOIDA in support of the recently introduced legislation are the American Bus Assn., the United Motor Coach Assn., the Private School Bus operators and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
