newsworthy
THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ON NOV. 5 OVERwhelmingly approved a six-year $325 billion bill to fund the
national surface transportation network, legislation that
authorizes billions of dollars for dedicated freight projects, establishes and expands programs to promote goods
movement, and creates a pilot program to allow individuals
under the age of 21 to operate a commercial motor vehicle
in interstate commerce.
The bill, which passed by a 363 to 64 margin, now goes to
House-Senate conferees, who will reconcile the House version with the Senate version that was approved in July. The
conference report then heads to
the full House and Senate for
votes, after which time a final
version will be sent to President
Obama for signature. The most
recent extension of the current
funding law expires on Nov.
20, and there is expected to be a
furious push on Capitol Hill to
get a bill to the president’s desk
before then. The new speaker
of the house, Rep. Paul Ryan
(R-Wis.), has made the bill’s
passage a priority in an effort to
show the American people that
Congress can collaborate on
major public policy initiatives.
The House bill creates a $4.5
billion grants program over six
years for what are considered “nationally significant”
freight and highway projects. The bill expands the so-called
National Highway Freight Network to encompass highway
connections to ports and intermodal facilities, and establishes a “national freight strategic plan” to govern goods
movement.
The bill requires the Department of Transportation
(DOT) to convene a task force to sketch out a blueprint
for a program allowing a “novice licensed driver” between
the ages of 19 years, six months and 21 to drive a truck in
a limited capacity between adjacent states that enter into
special bi-state agreements. The task force would have one
year from the day the bill becomes law to present DOT with
recommendations; the agency would have one year after
that to establish what the bill termed a “graduated” pilot
program. Currently, commercial drivers under the age of
21 cannot operate across state lines, though they can drive
within the boundaries of their states of residence.
REVISED SAFETY GUIDELINES
Shipper, freight broker, and owner-operator driver inter-
ests scored a victory: They were assured by key lawmakers
that language expanding the pool of motor carriers that
could meet the guidelines for a new federal hiring standard
for trucking firms would be included in the final version
of a House-Senate conference report. The language, pro-
posed by Rep. John Duncan Jr.
(R-Tenn.), would deem a motor
carrier fit to operate even if it
did not have a safety rating from
the Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration (FMCSA),
a subagency of the DOT that
oversees the nation’s trucks and
buses, as long as the carrier had
not willfully violated the law.
The original language would
have qualified a carrier as long
as it had a satisfactory safety
fitness determination from
FMCSA. However, industry
groups said that because the
agency lacks the resources to
conduct full safety reviews of
most of the nation’s 530,000
registered motor carriers and owner-operators, the bill
threatened to exclude many thousands of operators that
remain unrated yet operate in a satisfactory manner.
Duncan withdrew his amendment after receiving pledg-
es from Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), chair of the House
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and Rep.
Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), the committee’s ranking member,
that the language Duncan sponsored would survive the
conference process.
Chris Burroughs, senior government affairs manager
for the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA),
which represents brokers and third-party logistics specialists and has led the industry push for a national truck
hiring standard, said it will be a tough fight to get the
language through the Senate when it votes on p. 16
House decisively passes highway bill
