Watchdog calls out lax FMCSA oversight of $2B in grant money

WASHINGTON — The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration must do a better job of overseeing and keeping track of billions of dollars of taxpayer money aimed at preventing truck crashes, according to a government watchdog.

In an audit report released Friday on the agency’s Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program grant program, the Transportation Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) revealed that FMCSA’s division offices do not always follow the agency’s MCSAP monitoring policies and procedures.

In site visits conducted between May 2023 and February 2025 at FMCSA division offices in four sample states – Arizona, California, Texas and Virginia – OIG auditors also found that the guidelines FMCSA provides its division offices for reviewing grant recipients’ MCSAP reimbursement requests are “insufficient and outdated.”

In addition, auditors concluded that FMCSA “faces challenges prioritizing Commercial Vehicle Safety Plan [CVSP] goals and performance tracking.”

The reason for the audit – and why the findings are so concerning – is that the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, signed by then-President Joe Biden in November 2021, authorized over $2 billion in appropriations over five years for MCSAP state grants, along with $400 million in supplemental funds – a 61% increase over the previous five years.

“Because of this substantial increase in MCSAP grant funding and the importance of FMCSA oversight of state plans to reduce crashes and enforce commercial motor vehicle regulations, we initiated this audit,” the OIG stated.

“FMCSA reported that 5,176 fatalities involving large trucks and buses occurred in 2023. FMCSA needs to apply strong monitoring activities to verify funds are expended on eligible expenses that increase CMV [commercial motor vehicle] safety.”

To make the necessary oversight improvements, the OIG made five recommendations to FMCSA’s administrator (summarized):

• Issue guidelines that clearly and comprehensively address MCSAP oversight responsibilities, including documentation and supervisory reviews of quarterly report monitoring.
• Revise annual risk assessment guidelines to include an assessment of MCSAP-specific risks, emphasizing organizational management factors.
• Develop and implement a process to notify FMCSA’s state programs division of grantees that receive a medium or high priority level from the annual risk assessment.
• Revise monitoring plan guidelines to incorporate supervisory review and approvals of monitoring plans and verify plans are fully completed and include a rationale for any activities not completed.
• Revise guidelines on the impact of CVSP goal performance for creating a clear line between the performance of CVSP goals and when to take enforcement action and urge division offices to document oversight of CVSP goals.

FMCSA told the OIG it planned to implement the five recommendations by Dec. 31.

Related articles:

• Inflation means Biden’s infrastructure package gets less bang for the buck
• FMCSA changing how it identifies unsafe carriers
• FMCSA may face trouble in assessing carrier safety scores
• FMCSA action against 2 doctors threatens licenses of over 15,000 truckers

Click for more FreightWaves articles by John Gallagher.

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