DC Velocity - April 2009

allow thousands of unsafe vehicles and unqualified drivers on U.S. roads. ATA supported the plan, saying it would reduce the time and expense of multiple handoffs of trailers and containers and, in the process, cut carbon emissions. ATA also pointed to government studies showing that the program would have no negative impact on U.S. highway safety. (Debate over the issue was effectively mooted after President Barack Obama signed into law the $410 billion omnibus spending bill, which ended congressional funding of an 18-month pilot program designed to give Mexican truckers full access to U.S. commerce. The Obama administration has said it will explore alternative measures for establishing a new cross-border trucking program with Mexico.)

The two groups are not at loggerheads over everything. Both favor an increase in fuel taxes to pay for infrastructure improvements so long as there are guarantees that the funds will not be diverted for non-highway use. Neither strongly opposed the federal government’s new driver hours-of-service regulations prohibiting drivers from spending more than 11 consecutive hours behind the wheel and requiring at least 10 hours’ rest between shifts. However, OOIDA was uncomfortable with language mandating that drivers work no more than 14 hours in a day, saying that doesn’t give drivers sufficient time to rest between operating their routes and loading and unloading their cargo. ATA did not oppose that measure.

president, Jim Johnston, was a driv- with Congress. Jim Berard, director er and an owner-operator until he of communications for the House was named president of the fledg- Transportation and Infrastructure ling group in 1973. He is the only Committee, agrees, saying the fre-person to ever hold the post. quent clashes actually benefit the OOIDA started life in an office trail- industry’s relationship with er chained to a light pole at a truck Congress rather than cause friction. stop in Grain Valley, Mo., near “We get depth and insight into Kansas City. Today, OOIDA has industry positions when different 160,000 members, and it still calls viewpoints are brought to the Grain Valley home. table,” Berard says.

The key difference between the Spencer of OOIDA says ATA groups, according to Boyce, is the reflects the positions of large truck-makeup of their respective con- ing interests, while OOIDA’s stances stituencies. “ATA represents truck- represent those of small mom-and-ing companies,” he says. “OOIDA pop concerns that can’t move regu-represents individual drivers, all of latory and political mountains yet, whom choose not to be trucking in aggregate, move a large propor-company employees.” tion of the nation’s freight. “There is

Has the failure to present a united something to be said for having a front undermined the two groups’ presence in Washington. We’ve had lobbying efforts? Not in Boyce’s an office there for several years,” says opinion. He says the many opposing Spencer. “But I don’t know of any views have little if any bearing on trucking companies that are head-the trucking industry’s relationship quartered in Washington, D.C.”

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Frequent clashes

The culture gap between the groups can be traced to their roots. ATA is deeply tied to the federal policy apparatus; it has called the Washington, D.C., area home since its founding in 1933 and today sits in new headquarters in Arlington, Va., a Washington suburb. Its president and CEO, Bill Graves, grew up in a trucking family but has spent more than two decades in high-profile public sector posts. Graves joined ATA in 2003 after serving as two-term governor of his home state of Kansas. ATA has 37,000 members, mostly mid-sized to large truckers as well as big shippers like Wal-Mart Stores that operate private fleets.

OOIDA’s roots are more hardscrabble. Its

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