What Freight Brokers Want Congress To Fix | Episode 355

Why Freight Heads To DC

SPEAKER_01 0:00

It's that time of year again. We're getting ready to head to Washington, D.C. and lobby on the hill uh to share the voice of our industry with the TIA to the lawmakers of our country. So, Ben, we just wrapped up a good discussion there on some of the the uh hot points that we'll be discussing this year and looking to get um you know progress on. Um thoughts on the the wide array of uh discussion points that we obviously don't have enough time to sit with each lawmaker and talk about, but what are your thoughts on this?

SPEAKER_00 0:30

No, I think it was a really good conversation. Really excited for what you get to bring back. I know you go there every year and you guys are making a lot of headway. I mean, even recently, like what was it last year? You guys made a ton of progress on the I always forget the name.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Consumer protection. It's the bill that allows the uh FMCSA to impose civil penalties. That was the big one.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Yeah. So, and again, I also am I guess optimistic that my entire life I've basically felt like almost none of these things ever make progress or get done. But in the past five or six years, I've actually seen an impact. Things have shifted, things are changing. You're seeing safer. Yeah, but I mean, things are actually improving. So super excited to hear how things go this year.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Yeah, give it a listen all the way to the end. We we dig into a lot of topics and um let us know if uh if you have additional uh stories or topics you want us to share in that uh forum. So let's hop into

Back To School And Preseason NFL

SPEAKER_01 1:30

it. All right, we're back with another episode here of the Freight 360 podcast. Ben, I know I was uh I was absent the last couple of weeks, but I know you had a good conversation with uh with Dean from DAT. So what what's uh what's happening down in your neck of the woods, man?

SPEAKER_00 1:47

School started and summer's almost over. So super excited about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Oh, yeah, you guys do start school earlier than we do. We we don't start until after Labor Day up here.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

It was like two weeks in.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

How's that transition back to school?

SPEAKER_00 2:02

She loves school, so it's really easy for us. Like she looks forward to it, she's super excited. She still very much enjoys it and is excited for it, so it is not a thing. And she's a mourning person, I would say, for a little kid. I'm sure that'll maybe change as she gets a little older, but honestly.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Very good. Well, it's that time of year. I know we've got we're in the in the midst of uh preseason NFL. Um I was gone the last couple weeks, so I have not been, I still have not been to the Bills New Stadium yet. But what do you got at the NFL?

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Two things. One, um, apparently the 49ers owner, Jed York, was arrested in Palestine, Ohio. But the funnier thing is he got arrested from basically a police sting operation where he was caught at a brothel in a trailer park.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Oh my god. So prostitution in a trailer park.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

In a trailer park in Palestine, Ohio. And there was like, there's like literally an article from a local newspaper that was basically like, oh, now oh no, sorry, this was the San Francisco Standard. Now we're trailer trash as they fight back from 49ers' alleged arrest at Sting in Palestine, Ohio. Wow. That's wild.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Um, yeah, I'm uh I I know the Bills are playing well, we're recording on a Wednesday. They're playing tomorrow night at home. Um, final preseason game. Not sure if I'm gonna get to that one or not, but looking forward to the season, man. They're playing the Steelers Thursday. Is it?

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Yeah, they're playing the Steelers because this morning they were talking about some angry Bills fans that have seats that apparently were super expensive, and their seats, they showed the picture. You have to look through two panes of glass to be able to see the field from some areas.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

I mean, dude, I I I've been seeing this, and there's people hating on like some of the obstructive view um seats, and I don't think they're really as bad as people are making them out to be. Like, people knew when they got like there was an entire stadium experience where you got a virtual look. I remember you told me about it. Yeah. Yeah. You got a virtual look at what your what your seat was, what your angle was, and what was in front of you. So like I think people that are like they chose a less expensive seat because they're um it was cheaper. There was a panel of glass in front of them, and they're like, oh, we'll just be standing up anyway. And then like they sit down and they take a picture, and you can see like there's a panel of glass in front of you. Kind of like if you go to a hockey game and there's plexiglass or there's the glass all around the rink, and if you look down at a certain angle, like it's gonna be an obstructive view. Like it's just it's it's going to happen. Um, but it's very, very few seats. Like everyone else's seats that I've seen so far, um, have great views, like way better than the old stadium. Um, but I guess I'll I'll I can't really be the judge of it until I I get there myself.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

So I did think it was kind of comical because honestly, like I can remember as a kid, and again, these places aren't even there anymore, but the Civic Arena, which is where the Penguins used to play. Um I remember going to a playoff game, like super deep in the playoffs where the Penguins I think won the cup that year. So like early 90s. But like I remember literally sitting next to a post where you couldn't see like a corner of the rink. But also, it was like game six or game seven of like the final round of the playoffs, and it's like sometimes you'd rather be able to have that seat than no seat at all. And like in any stadium I've ever been, there are seats that have obstructed views. So it's not.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Um there was the I didn't watch it, but IndyCar did like a crazy the like Freedom 250 or whatever, like around DC last weekend.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

I didn't know that. That sounds pretty wild though.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Yeah. There's like 150 laps roughly, like around um basically like around like the White House area. It was like a I think like a couple mile, a little under 250.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

They're doing some crazy stuff from uh basically MMA fights to indie car races at the White House these days. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

Um all right, news.

Freight Market Pulse And Roadcheck

SPEAKER_01 6:22

I'm trying to think. I know today we're gonna I want to dig into some of the the um policy topics in our industry because the policy forum is is approaching very quickly here, and we're gonna be um on the hill in just a couple weeks meeting with lawmakers. Um but outside of that, news wise, um the I'm trying to think what what went out in our newsletter this week. Um, D oh, Dean's update, obviously, we have always in there in it, and it kind of sounds like um the market, you know, we did have quite a wild burst there. And a lot of it you guys talked about in the last episode was related to the World Cup and watch parties and you know consumption of and all that. Um the demand did soften a little bit um in the last week or two, um, but capacity dropped even more. So we really, I mean, we're still seeing pretty strong rates holding for the carriers that are um that are still operating. So I'm curious from your perspective, have you seen anything like in your, you know, in your perspective or the folks that you're you know consulting with and I've seen rates up regions or what what are you seeing?

SPEAKER_00 7:35

Yeah, I definitely saw, I mean, break check week, I definitely saw some rates spike. I was looking at them yesterday. Uh some stuff out of New Jersey down to Florida was super tight market, tons of loads posted, rates that I saw posted up like 3,600 on a lane that was normally like 24, 23, like 1,000, 1500 over it. And I mean, there were dozens and dozens of posts, and very little trucks willing to run that one. I think that was yesterday. And I mean, the big takeaway from Dean too is like it's road check year, not road check week. Where like, and he said the big reason it's been effective at reducing not just overall capacity, because it's not the point to reduce capacity, the point is to get unsafe drivers off the road, is they're basically rolling road checks anywhere and everywhere. So before, you know, they were kind of in an area where people could avoid it, but now they're so random that the drivers that weren't driving legal are just choosing not to drive anymore. So, I mean, I think that's good news for everybody on the highway.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Yeah, and so one of the big ones too, with and we'll kind of dig into this a little bit more in the episode, but the kind of the emphasis on Engl the English language proficiency. So it was it was like between nine and ten percent of out-of-service violations um in the last year have been so almost one in ten are related solely on English language proficiency. So like we're not even talking about breaks or you know, logbooks or valid license. It's like one in ten is they can't speak English. So um kind of wild. Yeah, he's hours of service, way more. 30, I think it was like about third, so 32, 33 percent were um hours of service related. So yeah, it's definitely not road check week, it's road check uh era for that, you know.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

If and if you didn't hear that episode, it's definitely worth a listen because he really went into a deep dive on what actually prevents accidents and what doesn't, and what data is available and what isn't. And I mean, it wasn't just from the perspective of somebody that is driven probably millions of miles, is still driving a truck around, but he also worked in insurance and did predictive analysis and has a background in like I can't remember his degree, but it's like I think it's like a degree from Harvard and like it's behavioral. But he like super well versed in like just how sleep affects function and things and how and what we could be doing to actually prevent fatalities that we aren't doing, and it was a really good conversation. I've I learned a ton from him. I know we've talked about that in the past with him, but it was a really good one last week.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Yeah. So let's kind of talk um hot topics. So, like as we go and we meet with lawmakers in September

Broker Liability After Montgomery

SPEAKER_01 11:35

in a couple weeks here, um, we've had a trend of a lot of the same topics every year. And a lot of it's been about fraud, double brokering, cargo theft, um, safety, and a carrier selection standard has been a repetitive hot topic, and it's even multiplied this year based on the Montgomery Supreme Court ruling. So I kind of wanted to dig into that a little bit. Is the um broker liability, kind of the the way that we've historically taken it to lawmakers is look, you know, there's been the you know, the the risk of a brokerage getting looped into a nuclear uh lawsuit verdict. Um again, the risk, not actually had happened yet, but the risk of it happening, we kind of saw like the warnings there, and it was like, you know, the federal government is who's responsible for um establishing safety and verifying safety for motor carriers. It's the FMCSA, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, right? So they determine um, you know, if a carrier is rated satisfactory or unsatisfactory or conditional, or as we've seen, the vast majority of carriers lately is unrated, right? They have not been given a safety rating at all. And that's a huge issue. But so what we're saying is like, well, as brokers, we believe that because of the risk of being dragged into a lawsuit and being held liable, that the federal government should establish a you know a go-no-go standard, right? Basically a standard of care at a federal level. So verifying that a carrier has active um authority granted to them to operate, um, you know, track that they have the correct insurance and they're not out of service, right? And if if we can check those three boxes using federal databases or, you know, whatever you know, we're gonna use as far as federal resources, whether it's registration information from MODIS or safety information from um Safer, you know, we have argued that that is us doing our due diligence. Now, fast forward Montgomery ruling in the Supreme Court. So we already knew like the Montgomery uh case had, you know, the incident was like four years ago, right? I think it was like 2022 or 2023 or something like that. It was a few years, it was a handful of years back. But when it got to Supreme Court this spring, and it was unanimously um agreed upon by the Supreme Court justices that brokers could be held liable. Um basically what they said was they we were not given a blanket exemption from the F4A, whatever the you know law was that was there that as a broker we don't we we no longer are gonna be granted immunity like out the gate. So meaning a um you know a case could be brought up and loop in a broker um as a you know partially liable, um I guess uh having a liable role in the you know case of negligence here. So so this year I think what we're you know we're gonna um really double down is is is on that you know fixing that liability ruling that came out. You know, we can't undo what a Supreme Court says. Um but now that the exemption or the you know the blanket um free of liability has been stripped, we are looking to have something added in that would grant some level of separation or just give us a standard of care that says, hey, if you do X, Y, and Z, we are giving the stamp of approval that you're doing your due diligence, right? And that could be, you know, like the the Montgomery case, C. H. Robinson hired a conditional carrier and they did tell, you know, they they told the driver, even though I think he said he was sick or tired or whatever, that you know, you need to keep driving. So there's a lot that went into this, but and the broader scope here is give us a go-no-go. Because if you have a um uh an accident in, you know, one state or one county versus another county or another state, they're gonna have very, very different jurisdictions and the way that they handle all of their um, you know, legal proceedings and all that. We just want a federal, like you guys are the federal entity that authorizes carriers to operate, that authorizes brokers to operate, and you assign safe, you uh you basically give the safety standards for motor carriers. So give us a blanket. Green light is good, red light is not good. And I know that sounds so simple, and like, yeah, why wouldn't they do that? But it's it is, you know, I'm sure the big trucking lobbying firms are like, no, we want brokers to be liable and blah, blah, blah. Um, but I think that's gonna be the biggest thing that we see, and how how do they go about doing that? Is if you remember the the surface transportation reauthorized, I don't I'm probably given the wrong name, but basically the big bill that handles um transportation expires at the end of September. So the end of this fiscal year, and there's a reauthorization bill that's gonna go that's you know being pushed through with bipartisan support. And I think the big ask is gonna be um put something in there. Like, you know, every time a big bill goes through, you always got people that are like, yeah, we'll we'll vote on it, as long as you also include this little you know tidbit here. Um and I think that's I think that's what you're gonna probably see is that that House bill, um Build America 250 is what it's called. Um it says it's already cleared committee 62 to 2, has broker registration standards, a cargo theft advisory committee, and fraud flagging at FMCSA registration. Um so we'll see because you know the big thing is like, and they told us this last year, a lot of the lawmakers, like, hey, if you want a bill to be passed, a standalone bill like stands no chance of making it. It always needs to, you know, find a vehicle, like a bigger bill that's got traction and you want it you want to add it into that. So that's I think the big the big one. I'm curious your take on, you know, what do you think what's the reality that we get any like you know, any change in this whole broker liability or the uh you know a standard of care for what's considered a safe carrier? Because I feel like it should be an obvious, like, yes, you the federal government should be able to do this, um but but it's been years and years of us uh saying the same thing and it feels like we're just falling on deaf ears.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

There was something else that was mandated to be done with a deadline that the I think the FMCSA or DA D O T had uh been mandated to do. Um I'm looking that up right now. Was that I'm looking it up. There was one recently.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

So here I'll read this off. So May tw May 14th, 2026, Supreme Court held unanimously in the Montgomery versus Carib Transport 2 that state law negligence selection claims against brokers are not preempted by F4A. So F4A is that um kind of what gate gave us the blanket immunity. They fall inside the safety exception that killed the early dismissal defense brokers leaned on for a decade. So we kind of knew this was potentially gonna come up as it like what happens when a broker does get pulled into a lawsuit? You know, then we we're gonna start seeing more and more instances like this. What do you got?

SPEAKER_00 19:43

The guidance on that was I remember reading was basically like you need to be able to substantiate that you did

What Counts As Due Diligence

SPEAKER_00 19:50

some type of vetting before you chose a carrier and you should be fine. It was basically the guidance in that ruling, I think, from like Justice Kavanaugh. But also in that same one, they basically said, we're also gonna have to see how this just plays out in different lawsuits, which I think is also kind of crazy. And to your other question, which is like I just don't understand, like I really don't know why CDLs are provided at a state level and not a federal level, especially if you're interstate and not intrustate. Like if you're getting a license to drive through states, which clearly you're gonna operate all over the country, why in the world that is a state-by-state license? Like, why would that not be done by the federal government? Even just like the license. Like, let's just not even talk about like the equipment or the understaffing or their need and ability to be able to go and inspect this many trucks that frequently to stay on top of it, which is why I don't think it passes. Maybe it does. You're talking about a massive amount of people and money you would need to actually do that. But even just the CDL level, from what we saw from like state-by-state fraud, CDL mills, different CDL like regulations on a state level, like I just makes no sense to me why a license that clearly is going to operate in almost every state in the US, outside of like maybe Alaska and Hawaii wouldn't come from the federal standard and would be a state standard. Like that just makes no sense to me. The federal government funds the roads, even if the federal government gives the states money to maintain their roads, like there are federal highways that these trucks are driving on. Like, why would that not be at like I don't even understand why that is not a good idea?

SPEAKER_01 21:39

I think what you could even do is have a federal standard, and the states can still issue licenses, but they must at a minimum meet the federal standard. So, like the in in Kavanaugh, the the one of the Supreme Court justices, he did say in the you know, that unanimous um vote that brokers can of course ask Congress or the president to change federal law, but that you know, as far as the FRA exemption, um it that's not going to protect brokers. So, but to your point, um, and this is something that um Chris Burroughs, who's head of TIA, his big he's using like the travel agent like analogy that, like, hey, we're as brokers, we're being asked to second guess a safety determination that the federal government has already made when they issued the operating authority, right? Like, so we're like he's you know saying that like as a broker, we're the travel agent. We're not the airline that's flying the traveler, we're not the hotel that the traveler is staying in. We're just letting them, we're getting them access to the the different options that are out there to be able to go on their trip, right? Um, so if and if a travel agent looks and says, like, oh yeah, this this airline is, you know, the FAA has them approved, or this hotel is a registered business and has meets all the uh safety federal guidelines to operate and serve food. And all that. Same thing with the um the federal government has granted the authority for a motor carry to operate. And us as brokers have gone through our selection criteria and verified that they have an active authority that was granted by the FMCSA, that they are not currently out of service. We're verifying they have insurance. And on top of that, we're going above and beyond and spending a ton of money to further vet these carriers to prevent from fraud or dishonest acts, or look at, you know, even though that they are considered safe by the federal government, maybe they're not safe in our standards. And that still isn't necessarily enough. So that's why we're asking that set a federal benchmark that will protect us if we at a minimum follow that. And then as brokerage to brokerage, we can still set our own higher criteria that we internally deem appropriate. Like just because the federal government says they're safe doesn't mean that I'm okay with, you know, with with loading this carrier. And that doesn't even exist right now. Because I might say I'm not going to load this carrier, and the federal government says, yes, you can, and um, you know, it doesn't matter. Or if I say, like, I think this carrier's good and the government says they're safe, I could still be looped into, you know, negligibility or whatever the negligence in a lawsuit here. So I think that's the big ask is like sneak it into that. And I guess not sneak it in, but like get it tied into that um the transportation re service transportation reauthorization bill that's you know coming up due for renewal in the next five or six weeks here. So there's a lot, you know. But it seems like common sense to me.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

There also was like a really good rebuttal left Matt Leffler put out too on like that ruling, like defined. We talked about this on the show, like when it happened, was like as like a borrowed employee, which to me was like, like, how are you an employee of two companies at the same time? And also, like the Texas Supreme Court ruled the exact opposite, like right after that. In fact, I reached out to Brian Nelson, he's one of the attorneys that's also with the TIA, and he's gonna, we actually need to schedule that with him to bring him on to talk about this. I reached out to him a couple weeks ago because there's just a lot of obviously opinions when there's not clarity, but some of the stuff, again, just like makes like literally no sense to me. I'm like, I just like imagine if like Uber had to determine which person had a valid driver's license before they worked for Uber. Like, well, it's either valid or it isn't. Is it expired or it's not expired? Then you can drive a car, right? Like, there's not like, hey, maybe this driver isn't legally allowed to drive. Like, you don't get pulled over and the cop goes, Whoa, you got a valid license. Let me check some other things to see if you're actually able to drive the car. You either are or you aren't. They either give it to you or they revoke it. Like, I don't know why that wouldn't be the same thing in this case.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

So I'm gonna read a little bit more on this um this bill. And keep in mind, um, when we when we make law in the United States, you have a House bill, and then you have a Senate companion bill. Um, so the currently the House bill is the Build America 250, and

Build America 250 Policy Priorities

SPEAKER_01 27:17

its official name is the let's see, uh HR 880, building unrivaled infrastructure and long-term development build for America's 250th Act. So the Build America 250 Act. So $580 billion for five years. Um, the September 30th is the current expiration of our current one. So Section 5006, broker qualifications. So new registration standards, worth knowing where TIA landed on this. The freight waves read is that the $75,000 bond with essentially no vetting or experience requirement is the current floor that that's where we're at right now. And that qualifying brokers is step one while capitalizing them for the new liability exposure is the step nobody's legislated. So post-Montgomery qualification standards and liability relief are the same conversation. Trade one for the other. You brought up the bond earlier, $75,000. I think that's very outdated. If you remember back when actually when I started, it just became $75,000. It was $10,000 before that, if you remember. Um was funny. We'll uh I'll we I was looking at our Facebook group before we recorded here, and somebody was talking about the R and R family A companies that went under earlier earlier this year, I think in like January, and everybody files on their bond. And I think they said for a $12,000 or $1,200 invoice, their portion of the bond payout was like $9. So they got like less than 1% of what they filed for. Um but I think broker qualifications, right? Like at this point now, one of the things we want to argue is that we we don't want junk brokers flooding our industry, creating unnecessary competition that's potentially fraudulent, dangerous, whatever, right? Um and we've lobbied for years of um, you know, qualification standards for brokers and what happens when someone um commits, you know, unlawful or fraudulent brokerage activity, so like double brokering, things like that, um, to hold them to a standard and actually enforce that. So even like the TIA themselves um has stated like if you want to join TIA and become a member, you need to have the three years of experience that is advised as a requirement to be a broker, right? And there's really no like check on that. It just says like you gotta have the experience. So, what does that mean? We don't know. So TIA says like it's three years experience or the equivalent education or training for it. So that's why like TIA is like if you want to join, you don't have three years' experience, you need to go through our new broker um basically their the training uh that they develop for new brokers that we actually help facilitate. So that's a big one. Um section 7109, cargo theft advisory committee. So um having a committee established that will recommend recommend different things to the to the DOT for prevention. So we're seeing a lot more of this pop up. Even TIA has their own internal um fraud advisory committee, um, both with uh broker members and um like vendor members. So like Free360 sits on that committee. Um I meet with them every month. We go over like different so you got people from like highway, DAT, insurance companies, et cetera. And we just kind of talk through like what we're seeing from our space, what we can do to help um, you know, prevent cargo theft and better reporting of it and identifying trends and stuff like that. And here's the the third one is the big one that we really hit home last year is the Household Goods Shipping Consumer Protection Act. So this is the one that it's folded in there now, but this is the one that finally granted the FMCSA the authority to impose civil penalties for things like double brokering. So it's interesting to see how all these things that we've talked about over the years are now being all wrapped up into one massive bill that literally has a deadline of like 34 days from now or whatever it is. Yeah, I found it.

SPEAKER_00 31:31

It's actually, yeah, September 30th.

SPEAKER_01 31:34

Yeah. We'll see. I mean, we saw that with um what are some of the huge bills we've had? Like the I feel like there was one during COVID, right, that was like humongous, and they put a whole bunch of stuff in there. Um we had one a couple years ago too, didn't we? Trying to think. Um, the the one big beautiful bill act. That was the big one last year with from Trump. The CARES Act. The CARES Act was the one in 2020 during the pandemic, 2.2 trillion in economic relief. Then you had the um America Rescue Act, Rescue Plan Act in 21, which was stimulus money with COVID, um, inflation reduction act in 22. But these are all like massive bills that like have they're they're the vehicle, and a bunch of little stuff gets thrown in there. So I think that's our big ask is gonna be look at that Build America 250 Act and try to get a lot of these provisions for broker qualifications, cargo theft advisory committee, the being able to impose fines against the bad actors. And that's all one, you know, one big point to lobby.

SPEAKER_00 32:48

So you find it super ironic that inflation is primarily the result of devaluing money, and that's primarily the result of spending more than you bring in as a government. And they created a giant bill to spend money, calling it the Inflation Reduction Act. Like, if that's not the most ironic bill I've ever heard in my entire life. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 33:11

Yep, exactly. Um, other notable ones here, and we talked, we've talked about these quite a bit over the years, but broker transparency. This has been huge for years, and it's interesting, depending on what you know,

Transparency Fight And Cargo Theft

SPEAKER_01 33:28

uh political party the member of Congress is that you talk to, they're either like, oh yeah, 100%, or they're like, Yeah, no, we're not gonna support that. Like so, more right-leaning. So to just to clarify this, broker transparency we want to repeal the outdated rule that brokers need to disclose the rate that they're charging the shipper um if a carrier asks for it. So, like if uh if I charge a customer $2,000 and I pay a truck $18.50, the truck can ask me, hey, I I I want to know what your customer is paying you. And as it stands now, um there's a law in place that actually requires that. And a lot of broker carrier agreements, um, by them signing it, they're waiving the right to to do that. Uh, but it's been a challenge. Like there was the big case where somebody got it. Cheetah Express. Cheetah to TQL, right?

SPEAKER_00 34:31

Still might be going through another level.

SPEAKER_01 34:34

It was like 40% profit, it was one single load, like it was not an accurate sample size, but basically we wanna we want to uh have that um whole thing scrapped. And but yeah, I mean if you go like for example, I went to a I think it was there's like a libertarian congressman from like Kentucky, I think. And it was just like, yeah, we have no we have no place like dictating how our private businesses operate and how they maintain profits, right? And then you like I had a buddy of mine that was at like one of New York State's um more liberal congressional offices, and they were like, you know, we really gotta regulate what kind of profits these people are having. And I was like, what are we married to opposing um like we're dealing with private business here, so that's a big ask.

SPEAKER_00 35:30

And then much of that also, like, do you remember they they had the huge thing where they basically changed how all the commissions are able to be done in like residential real estate sales? And they predicted, like, oh, so many more homes will be sold once we like change the way the commissions work. And I can't even remember exactly what they changed, but I think effectively, like, it literally did nothing after they stepped in. Like, I don't think there's literally any change in the housing market or how that actually plays out. We're basically now like the sale selling house broker gets a commission, but the purchasing maybe doesn't. They reconfigured that. There was a giant deal about it, and I don't know that that much changed anything. And also, like, if you like get into other industries, you realize like how kind of absurd that is. Like, if you look into like automotive sales, like MSRP manufactured suggested retail price, is not what the thing costs. It's what the person or company making it says. Like, we suggest you charge this. We're not telling you what they paid for it. And also to sell cars, you basically get a license from that manufacturer, and it's like geographically defined, where like no one else can sell that new car, and there it's like a license where like nobody can solve that. Yeah, yeah, it's crazy like how car dealerships license and deal with like cost of goods sold, and like nobody has any idea what that number actually is.

SPEAKER_01 36:55

But I always thought it was interesting that like you know, Ford and Chevy can't have a dealership, but Tesla can. And there was some loophole that Tesla did.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

Yeah, I don't remember what that is, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

But yeah, because like Tesla doesn't sell new Teslas through third-party dealerships, they sell them themselves. So um all right, so moving on from that, the last one is um uh the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act. It's HR 2853, shortened as uh Corca. Passed the House and is waiting on the Senate. So this is one that um the bill directs the the Department of Transportation to coordinate with the Department of Justice, Holnet Security, and the FBI on federal cargo theft strategies. So, like what's been done in recent years is they keep saying, like, oh yeah, we're gonna do you know more studies into cargo theft. And it's like, no, instead of all that, we want an actual um like set-in-stone law on what happens and you know what assets are allocated towards cargo theft. Because if you if you remember, we did a great episode with was it Verisk? Yeah. It's CargoNet, which is a Verisk company. And really, really, yep. Um, and the one guy too was he was the guy that was on the 60 Minutes like uh cargo theft episode. I actually talked to him a couple a couple months back about something, but um the numbers are absolutely wild. Like, if you remember, I was telling you this a few years back, there was a uh uh fraud theft case that was like the price tag on it was like $400,000 of apparel, like Adidas pants or something like that. And I contacted the LA County District Attorney's Office, and they like they just were like, yeah, it's not big enough for us to take on. And I was like, what 400k is not big enough? It's because if you just like you know, do some research on cargo theft in LA, and you'll see like the it's like fast and furious style. Like they're they're hijacking friggin' train cars and cracking open uh doors on trailers that they target like the high the the stuff that's worth a lot or that they can resell easily. So like electronics, obviously, right? There's a black market for that, but even like frozen seafood is like a hot commodity right now, and laundry detergent, battery, yeah, stuff that they can flip into a bodega quickly. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 39:30

So it's not somebody I was talking to somebody last week that used to work for one of the railroads, and there was an article last week we were talking about that was talking about I think it was like the BNSF, or it was one of them in Memphis. They said there was so much being stolen since the pandemic that if you go there now, it looks like a military base or a prison. Like 15-foot razor wire fences around the rail terminal, um, video cameras. They said that their drones and their cameras are able to identify a car, even if the car changes its license plate and is off-site, and they're able to basically get the police dispatch to arrest them. But like it's wild as to how rampant that got. Which also I I don't know if kind of transportation news, but have you seen a lot of the recent pushback against flock cameras around just residential vehicles and neighborhoods and things, and people are just like really pushing back against like the surveillance state aspect of it, which I think is fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 40:39

Yeah, yeah, I've heard a lot about flock lately. Um what's the other one in here too? Um oh the the revolving door of fraudulent bad actors just re-registering, right? So like the MC, and we've we've talked about this for years, and I'm I'm I feel like so you know the the long and short of it is that like, hey, if I got a hundred MC numbers, right, they're all registered to a P.O. box

Stopping Fraudulent Re-Registration

SPEAKER_01 41:10

or an apartment in like Billings, Montana, right? Clearly, this is not 100 brokers operating in that location. But once I commit fraud with one of them, it gets flagged, you know, move on to the next. I got 99 more. It's kind of like the 100 bottles of beer on the wall and you go all the way down, right? They got 100 DOT numbers or MC numbers, and then I'm down to 99, then 98. And the what the reality is is if you if you do like the forensics on it, and we've had, I've seen great visuals on like LinkedIn and Twitter from different folks in our industry, and they can connect the dots on all these different authorities, and it's like whether it's relatives or the address or whatever it is, um, there's gotta be some, you know, the the FMCSA's database needs some sort of like true identity or enforcement or something that's more than just a registration database, right? Verify that we actually know who the person is that is going to be um registering this company. And one of the guys that I was with last year had a really good idea. He's like, Yeah, why don't you just basically like the owner of a carrier needs to register through like the Twick program. So the transportation workers identification credentials, like you get a Twick card. It's like what lets you get into the ports. Um, and they go through a whole whole med security background check and fingerprinting and all that. So like it's a deterrent in an in and of itself. Like it's not gonna be a huge barrier to entry if you want to start a legitimate company, but it's basically saying that like we can tie the fraud back to an actual individual and hold them accountable if something goes, you know, you know, if they commit fraud and and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 42:49

So I agree. The Twick card one, I like that one. Or even I mean, like literally even a bank account, right? Like the federal government has a system for like terrorism tied to bank accounts, which has a I can't remember, I don't remember the name of this list. Um, but like there's literally a list where like if you're on it, you can't open a bank account. There's a list that it I think it originated after 9-11, more related to terrorism and money laundering for terrorism. But there was like back when I worked in a bank, like literally a printed list that they had, and we would look on it before you could open a bank account. And you need ID, you need two forms of ID. Like, you can tie things to things that have other identity verifications. Because to your point, like if you can't go and hold someone accountable for the actions of a company, like what is the deterrent to just not keep doing it? I do think probably there'd also end up being a workaround where you get a lot of people that have nothing to do with the trucking company, they get paid to open a bank account, and the person committing the crime doesn't care what happens to them, gives them a thousand bucks, they sign up for it, never do anything with it again, and they go to arrest somebody that had nothing to do with the crime, which is probably what would happen in some of these cases, but at least it's a step in that direction.

SPEAKER_01 44:05

Yeah. Yep, agreed. So that's it. If you you got we got a couple weeks before we're heading to DC. So if you guys have any um any stories you want us to share or any other points you want us to to discuss with with lawmakers, um,

Stories To Bring Lawmakers

SPEAKER_01 44:22

let us know. I always get, you know, I feel like I say this every year, and I I'm shocked every year when it happens again, is like how disgusting I feel whenever I go to DC just to see how just the politics of how things operate there and how young everyone that really is running our government is. Like, yeah, you see this congressman or the senator, but it's all the staffers that are really doing the work. Like the actual member of of Congress is like typically busy doing like media or uh trying to get re-elected, right? Voting, yeah, running for re-election, like all the things. But they do have a pretty robust staff, you know, that that you know, in they all sit on one of the major committees. So like um, you know, transportation and infrastructure is the big one, obviously, that that we deal with in our space. But even within, regardless of which committee they sit on, within their staff, they're gonna have someone that's well versed in transportation. So like usually those are the best people for us to meet with, or if they're not available, we get in contact with them after the fact. Um but yeah, you know, some of sometimes what what we're telling them falls on deaf ears, but other times, like we've got we've had some really good conversations with uh Marsha Blackburn and Tim Burchett and um others in the Tennessee, Kentucky area, as far as uh the folks that I've met with. But let us know if you guys have stories you want us to share. Stories resonate with um with people more than just facts, right? Like we say it in prospecting as a brokerage, right? Like tell a story because people will feel a certain way and remember how they feel, versus hearing you give a statistic or data points. So let us know. Share us, share with us anything you want us to relay, and we'll do our best. So any other uh there's a a lot we've kind of packed in there, but anything else on the policy topic.

SPEAKER_00 46:21

If you end up seeing Representative Tim Burchett, he's been super vocal about the call it like the disclosure movement with aliens and UFOs. And I heard some really good interviews with him, and he'd be a super interesting

UFO Detour And Final Takeaway

SPEAKER_00 46:36

person to talk to about.

SPEAKER_01 46:37

Yeah, he's he is one that like every year will sit with us. It's funny, like one of the guys, uh actually Alex Swinston, who's from um Expedite All, and he's got another company now, but like they grew up in the same area, and like Tim Bird Chip will be like, Hey, how's your dad doing, or your uncle or whoever it is. So, like he'll always give us the time of day and sit down. Like last year, though, like the buzzer went off in his office, meaning like, dude, you gotta go vote on something right now. So he had to leave in the middle of our discussion, but it was still he'll always give us the time of day. So I'll have to ask him about the aliens and his disclosure movement.

SPEAKER_00 47:10

Yeah, I mean, even recently, there's some really interesting things that he said because he's gotten access to places that typically they haven't. And there's supposed to be like a really big bill related to that coming up in September, too. Didn't he do a big Joe Rogan interview? He did. It was very interesting where he talked a lot about this. I he had said explicitly he was aware of like five or six spots in the ocean where like verified UAPs have been cited repeatedly. He was talking about, I think the place is called Pax River, which is like a Air Force test facility that he went and saw, but he couldn't speak about what exactly he saw there. But I've listened to some really interesting interviews with him recently and a lot of people that have been talking about a lot of those things.

SPEAKER_01 47:58

Yep. All right.

SPEAKER_00 48:01

Final thoughts. Whether you believe you can or believe you can't, you're right. And until next time, go bills.