![](https://www.freightwaves.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/18/Robin-Hutcheson-high-res-crop-2-credit-FMCSA.jpg)
Robin Hutcheson is resigning from her post as head of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, a U.S. Department of Transportation source confirmed to FreightWaves.
Her last day on the agency will likely be Jan. 26. No reason was given as to why she is leaving.
Sue Lawless, FMCSA’s assistant administrator, is in position to move the agency in an acting administrator role after Hutcheson’s departure. Lawless also serves because the agency’s executive director and chief safety officer.
Hutcheson, who was confirmed in September 2022, was FMCSA’s seventh administrator because the agency was established in 2000.
Her predecessors — Jim Mullen, Wylie Deck and Meera Joshi — led the agency in acting roles since Ray Martinez resigned in 2019.
Hutcheson was criticized by lawmakers during a hearing on Capitol Hill last month for collaborating in a fundraiser while a proposed regulation that will limit truck speeds was — and still is — pending. The fundraiser was allegedly sponsored by “labor unions and trial attorneys” which can be supporters of the controversial rule.
Hutcheson denied that the credibility of the rulemaking was damaged, noting that “we take very seriously the fidelity of the strategy of rulemaking, and we don’t discuss the contents of the rule whilst we’re engaging with our stakeholders.”
At a Capitol Hill hearing on Wednesday, FMCSA got here under fire again — from the Transportation Intermediaries Association — for paying an excessive amount of attention to non-safety issues reminiscent of private contracts between brokers and trucking firms.
Hutcheson previously served as deputy assistant secretary for safety policy for DOT under the Biden administration.
She led the event of the National Roadway Safety Strategy, which DOT unveiled in January 2022. She also helped secure $13 billion in additional funding for safety programs and initiatives included within the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law signed in 2021.
:
- FMCSA issues policy on sexual assault amongst truck drivers
- Robin Hutcheson discusses priorities for FMCSA
- FMCSA’s Hutcheson tells senators: close ‘loopholes’ in trucker drug testing
The post FMCSA Administrator Robin Hutcheson to resign appeared first on FreightWaves.