Motor Carrier Act of 1980

The Motor Carrier Regulatory Reform and Modernization Act, more commonly known as the Motor Carrier Act of 1980 (MCA) is a United States federal law which deregulated the trucking industry.

Motor carrier deregulation was a part of a sweeping reduction in price controls, entry controls, and collective vendor price setting in United States transportation, begun in 1970-71 with initiatives in the Richard Nixon Administration, carried out through the Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter Administrations, and continued into the 1980s, collectively seen as a part of deregulation in the United States.

Since the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, the federal government had regulated various transportation modes, starting with the railroad industry, and later the trucking and airline industries. Increasing public interest in deregulation led to a series of federal laws beginning in 1976 with the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act. The deregulation of the trucking industry began with the Motor Carrier Act of 1980, which was signed into law by President Carter on July 1, 1980.

Studies of the legislative process leading up to passage of the MCA indicate that the Act resulted from a concert of action by the Carter Administration, Congressional leaders, including Senator Ted Kennedy, an extensive coalition of "civil society" organizations which was a follow-on to coalitions created for rail and air transport regulatory reforms, and Interstate Commerce Commissioners appointed by Presidents Nixon and Carter who supported the pro-competition objectives of the legislative initiatives of 1971 to 1980 (notably A. Daniel O'Neal and Darius Gaskins).

The MCA was envisioned to be a sweeping de-regulation of the trucking industry. When President Carter signed the bill, he proclaimed:

The Act prohibited rate bureaus from interfering with any carrier's rights to publish its own rates, and, as implemented, removed most rate making from the rate bureaus, eliminated most restrictions on commodities that could be carried, and deregulated the routes that motor carriers could use and the geographic regions they could serve. The law authorized truckers to price freely within a "zone of reasonableness," meaning that truckers could increase or decrease rates from current levels by 15 percent without challenge, and encouraged them to make independent rate filings with even larger price changes.

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