Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/339482
Logbook 14 | Overdrive | July 2014 A Senate bill that would have suspend- ed two of the 34-hour restart provisions in the hours of service rule was pulled from the Senate floor June 19. The annual Transportation, Housing and Urban Development bill included an amendment that would have halted the requirement that a driver's 34-hour restart include two consecutive 1-5 a.m. periods and the once-per-week limit on the restart, pending a study. The bill provides the U.S. Department of Transportation with its fiscal 2015 funding. The amendment, proposed by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), was added by the Appropriations Committee early last month. Freshman Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), however, had filed an amendment for consideration by the full Senate to strip the bill of the Collins amendment but keep the requirement for further study of the rule's efficacy. After disagreement on how to move the bill forward for debate and into the amendment proposition phase, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) pulled the bill from the Senate floor. It's unclear when the bill will make its way back to the floor for debate. The White House released a statement saying it did not support the Collins amendment. The American Trucking Associa- tions said it was "disappointed" that the bill was pulled, adding that the Collins amendment is "sound policy." The House's version did not include the suspension of the restart provi- sions, but it did include language that would prevent the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration from moving forward with its rule to in- Hours restart changes debated The Senate's version of the annual appropriations bill for the U.S. De- partment of Transportation contains language that would prevent the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Ad- ministration from dragging its feet in producing a final electronic logging device mandate rule. The bill also sets a deadline for the agency to produce its long-awaited Safety Fitness Determination rule, the timetable for which FMCSA has continued to push back. The Senate's Transportation, Housing and Urban Development bill gives the agency $592 million for fiscal 2015. It came out of the Senate's Appropriations Committee June 5, when an amendment was added to suspend the 2013 hours of service rule for at least a year until more study can be done to justify its restart provisions. If passed, the bill would require FMCSA to publish a final ELD rule by Jan. 30. The current MAP-21 highway funding bill required the agency to produce a proposed rule by Sept. 30, 2013, but the agency didn't publish the proposal until March of this year. The 90-day public comment period on the rule ended June 26, after which the agency began work on a final rule. The agency usually produces a final rule within a few months of the end of public com- ment periods on proposed rules, and the Jan. 30 deadline would give the agency seven months to publish its final ELD rule. Though the bill's language wouldn't seem to set an unrealistic target, FMCSA has missed several self-set timeframes on its calendar. Citing "excessive" delays on a Safety Fitness Determination rule, the bill also would require FMCSA to initiate a rulemaking "no later than December 2014." The SFD rule is the agency's next step in its Compliance, Safety, Accountability program. The rule would allow the agency to use a sim- ilar data set it uses in CSA's Safety Measurement System rankings to produce an actual fitness score for carriers. It then could use the scores to target carriers for intervention. – James Jaillet Senate bill sets e-log deadline The high-profile truck crash involving actor Tracy Morgan thrust hours of service into the national limelight, but legislative reform stalled in the Senate. The bill would give FMCSA seven months to publish its final ELD rule. Logbook_0714.indd 14 6/26/14 9:36 PM