House and Senate to begin negotiating final highway bill

Mike

Well-Known Member
A team of negotiators from the House and Senate is in place and will begin hammering out a final version of a multiyear surface transportation bill next month. On Thursday, OOIDA issued a call to action urging lawmakers to remove a government mandate for electronic on-board recorders from the legislation.

On Thursday, April 26, leaders from the House announced their team of 33 negotiators who will join the Senate’s 14-person team at the table. The panel announced that its first meeting will happen May 8 in DC where they’ll begin working on highway funding, trucking safety and other programs that use federal transportation funds.

Senators are bringing their two-year, $109 billion bill to the table, complete with a motor carrier safety program that includes EOBRs in addition to other items affecting trucking such as parking, detention time, cab crashworthiness, toll roads, public-private partnerships, chameleon carriers, driver training standards and a study of how regulations affect small businesses.

OOIDA continues to hammer on the proposed EOBR mandate, saying the tracking devices are no more effective than paper logs when it comes to safety and hours-of-service compliance. By the White House’s own report, a mandate for EOBRs would cost the trucking industry $2 billion, twice as much as the recent changes to the hours-of-service rules.


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