type: timeline_event
President Jimmy Carter signs the Motor Carrier Act of 1980 into law, deregulating the trucking industry by removing restrictions on routes individual companies could serve, deregulating rates, and ending the industry practice of colluding on rates through rate bureaus, completing the bipartisan transportation deregulation that will enable massive industry consolidation over subsequent decades. Combined with the Airline Deregulation Act (1978) and Staggers Rail Act (1980), the Motor Carrier Act establishes deregulation as bipartisan political consensus, demonstrating how Chicago School economic ideology transcends partisan divisions through academic influence, think tank advocacy, and policy elite consensus. While many later assume Reagan deregulated transportation because regulatory relief was his signature campaign issue, Carter actually enacted these laws following efforts by his Interstate Commerce Commission appointees to pursue deregulation through administrative action. The bipartisan support - from presidential administrations and legislative leaders in both parties, business and public interest groups, and regulators themselves - demonstrates the effectiveness of ideological capture across the political spectrum. This deregulation framework, promoted by economists, Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, and other conservative institutions as promoting competition and efficiency, enables the industry consolidation and worker exploitation that will follow. The Motor Carrier Act represents the culmination of 1970s deregulation ideology, spanning Carter's Democratic administration and Reagan's upcoming Republican presidency, showing how Powell Memo objectives of reducing government oversight of business achieve bipartisan implementation.