LAS VEGAS, Nev. — In identifying the US trucking industry’s many challenges heading into 2013, American Trucking Associations president and CEO Bill Graves is pointing his finger squarely at Washington.

Graves offered CSA, the federal government’s safety monitoring program, as a prime example of the challenges Washington is creating for trucking.

“We still believe that CSA is fundamentally the program that will make travel on the nation’s highways safer,” Graves said in his opening address at the American Trucking Associations annual management conference. “But it must be implemented and managed in such a way as to instill confidence with the industry that our ‘buy in’ to the program will make our companies stronger and not be penalized by inaccurate data or misrepresentation by the shipping community or the media.”

Graves also pointed to the administration’s pursuit of a new hours of service rule as another example.

“The rule was working just fine,” he said “and I have no doubt that the changes were the result of political pressures brought to bear from the White House and not the result of FMCSA professionals believing that further change was necessary or could be justified.”