H.R. 6884 Is Not a Safety Bill

How the Kowalski Freight Brokers Safety Act would squeeze small carriers, consolidate freight, and create downstream incentives that favor rail

Executive summary

• H.R. 6884 (the “Patrick and Barbara Kowalski Freight Brokers Safety Act”) proposes a new civil penalty for freight brokers that contract with carriers labeled “unsafe” under a simple violation-count test. [1]

• The bill’s definition of “unsafe” is blunt: three or more DOT violations in the prior five years (either for the carrier or a driver it employs), regardless of severity, context, or remediation. [1]

• That design predictably pushes brokers into rigid “avoidance” policies, because the penalty is tied to cargo value. The most replaceable carriers in that environment are small carriers and owner-operators.

• Large fleets are structurally insulated through scale, compliance resources, entity complexity, and driver churn; small carriers have none of those buffers.

• As small-carrier capacity is squeezed, freight tends to migrate toward contract-heavy capacity and modal alternatives. Rail becomes an indirect beneficiary of reduced trucking flexibility and spot-market competition.

• Campaign finance records show the bill’s sponsor has received contributions from railroad-affiliated PACs (e.g., BNSF Railway Company RailPAC). This does not prove motive, but it strengthens the incentive-alignment question the public is entitled to ask. [2]

• If Congress wants safety outcomes, the fix is not a raw violation-count trigger. A safety bill should weight severity, use safety-fitness determinations, credit remediation, and focus liability where operational control exists.

1. What H.R. 6884 actually does

H.R. 6884 would add new sections to Title 49 creating broker liability when a broker contracts with a “specified transportation company” that meets the bill’s “unsafe” definition. The civil penalty is set at 10% of the value of the contracted cargo for the entire contract. Collected penalties are deposited into the Highway Trust Fund and may be used for safety-eligible projects. [1]

The bill also authorizes the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) to investigate a freight broker following a fatal crash involving a contracted company and, if FMCSA finds “egregious disregard for safety,” to impose additional operating requirements on the broker. [1]

2. The definition of “unsafe” is the core structural problem

Under H.R. 6884, a carrier becomes a “specified transportation company” if, within the prior five years, it has been issued three or more DOT violations, or it employs a driver with three or more DOT violations. [1]

That threshold is not risk-weighted. It treats violations as equal, ignores severity and causal connection to crashes, and does not credit corrective actions. In practice, it collapses safety into a single count metric, which is a poor proxy for operational safety.

3. Why small carriers get crushed first

A cargo-value penalty changes broker behavior. When the downside is proportional to the load value, brokers predictably adopt bright-line exclusion rules to reduce liability. Those rules do not need to be fair. They only need to be defensible.

Small carriers are the first casualties because they generally:

• Operate under a single DOT number and authority (no entity “buffer” if a record gets messy).

• Run more spot-market freight, irregular lanes, ports/plants, and one-off shipper facilities, which increases inspection encounters.

• Lack dedicated compliance staff to challenge questionable citations or aggressively use DataQs.

• Have less leverage with brokers and fewer contract alternatives when blacklisted.

4. How large fleets are structurally insulated

Large fleets are not magically immune to violations; they are better positioned to reduce how violations translate into market exclusion. They can spread compliance risk across a larger organization and often have the staff and process to contest, delay, or mitigate the downstream impact of violations.

Common insulation mechanisms include:

• Compliance departments that systematically challenge inspections and citations and manage CSA optics.

• Fleet scale that dilutes violation concentration on any single unit/driver relative to total operations.

• Organizational complexity (multiple operating entities) that can compartmentalize reputational risk.

• Driver churn that removes “high-risk” drivers from the payroll before thresholds become operationally meaningful.

5. The rail incentive (and why rail money matters even without a conspiracy)

When small-carrier trucking capacity is squeezed, freight does not disappear. Shippers shift toward capacity that is predictable, contract-heavy, and easier to underwrite. That increases the relative attractiveness of large truckload networks and rail intermodal options.

This is where incentives align: rail benefits when spot-market trucking becomes less flexible and more concentrated. Campaign finance disclosures show that railroad-affiliated PACs have contributed to the sponsor’s campaign committee, including BNSF Railway Company RailPAC in recent cycles. [2] That does not prove intent or quid pro quo. It does, however, make it reasonable to scrutinize whether the bill’s structure unintentionally (or conveniently) channels freight toward rail-friendly market conditions.

6. What a safety-focused alternative would look like

If Congress wants safety outcomes without destroying small carriers, the policy design should:

• Use safety-fitness determinations or severity-weighted measures, not raw violation counts.

• Differentiate administrative violations from safety-critical violations and crash predictors.

• Include a remediation and rehabilitation pathway (corrective action credit, probation, appeal).

• Place liability where control exists (e.g., where a party controls loading times, dispatch pressure, or operating constraints).

• Avoid cargo-value penalties that force blanket exclusion instead of targeted safety improvement.

7. How the FOPT Act Fixes What H.R. 6884 Breaks

The core failure of H.R. 6884 is that it attempts to improve safety by penalizing outcomes without fixing the systems that produce unsafe behavior. The Freight Operations Protection & Transparency Act (FOPT Act) approaches safety from the opposite direction: by correcting operational incentives, assigning responsibility where control exists, and preserving market access for competent carriers of all sizes.

Where H.R. 6884 relies on a raw violation-count trigger, the FOPT Act relies on structured, behavior-based standards. It distinguishes administrative violations from safety-critical violations, weights severity, and evaluates patterns rather than isolated events. This prevents paperwork density and inspection exposure from being mistaken for operational danger.

Critically, the FOPT Act includes a remediation pathway. Carriers are given clear notice of deficiencies, access to corrective-action programs, and the ability to restore full market participation through documented compliance. Safety improvement is rewarded. Elimination is not the default outcome.

The FOPT Act also places responsibility where operational control exists. Time-based abuses such as detention and layover are treated as compensable events, reducing dispatch pressure, fatigue, and corner-cutting. Brokers and shippers are held accountable when their control over time, routing, or facility access creates unsafe conditions.

Unlike H.R. 6884, the FOPT Act avoids cargo-value penalties that force blanket exclusion. Instead, it uses graduated enforcement, transparency requirements, and procedural consistency so brokers can make informed decisions without defaulting to avoidance.

Finally, the FOPT Act preserves competition. By preventing artificial exclusion of small carriers and owner-operators, it maintains a diverse carrier base, supports regional and spot-market flexibility, and avoids unnecessary modal shifts that occur when trucking capacity is artificially constrained.

In short, H.R. 6884 treats safety as a compliance scorecard problem. The FOPT Act treats safety as an operational systems problem. One concentrates the market. The other fixes it.

Conclusion

H.R. 6884 is framed as a broker-safety accountability bill, but its mechanism is a blunt violation-count trigger tied to cargo value. That combination predictably drives brokers to exclude the most replaceable carriers: small carriers and owner-operators. Large fleets are insulated by scale and compliance resources, and rail becomes an indirect beneficiary as freight shifts toward contract-heavy and modal alternatives.

If lawmakers want safer roads, the fix is not counting violations. The fix is building a system that measures real risk, rewards correction, and assigns responsibility where operational control exists.

Sources

[1] Text of the bill (Patrick and Barbara Kowalski Freight Brokers Safety Act / H.R. 6884 draft text as introduced by Rep. John Moolenaar, Dec. 17, 2025).

[2] ProPublica FEC Itemizer, PAC Donations to MOOLENAAR FOR CONGRESS (C00561530), showing contributions from BNSF Railway Company RailPAC (entries in 2024 cycle).

Online references for Source [2] and coverage:

• ProPublica Itemizer PAC donations page for C00561530 (2024): https://projects.propublica.org/itemizer/committee/C00561530/2024/pac-donations

• FEC committee profile (C00561530): https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00561530/

• Industry coverage discussing the bill’s mechanism and concerns: FreightWaves (Dec. 30, 2025), Overdrive (Dec. 23, 2025), Land Line (Dec. 22, 2025).