Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/757641
December 2016 | Overdrive | 29 Trump in late November announced Elaine Chao as his Secretary of Trans- portation. Chao served as Labor Secre- tary under President George W. Bush. A longtime Washington insider, Chao is seen as a good fit to oversee Trump's push for major infrastructure invest- ments. Once Trump assumes office, he also will name a new FMCSA head. ELDs, hours of service and emissions regs The ELD mandate, which became law last December and gave carriers two years to comply, was mandated by Congress in 2012. Since that was done with a strong Republican majority in the House, it "would be far-fetched" to expect Congress to walk back regulations it initiated, says Lane Kidd, head of the Trucking Alliance, a carrier coalition. Todd Spencer, executive vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, agrees, noting that "even some Tea Party Republicans" supported the measure. However, tractor-trailer emissions regulations finalized this year by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency could be a target for the Trump administra- tion, Kidd and Spencer agree. The new standards take hold next year and will be phased in through 2027. Spencer sees an opportunity to have the Phase 2 regulations re-evaluated or have their 10-year implementation period extended. Hours of service reform also may be on the table, says Rajkovacz. His group plans to pursue a redaction of the 30-minute break requirement implemented in 2013 and a return of split-sleeper berth time as a way to make the 14-hour rule more flexible. Infrastructure, privatization and tolls Trump has called for spending $1 trillion on infrastructure projects. "We're going to fix our inner cities and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals," he said in his victory speech. A major infrastructure package will be challenging to pass, says Spencer, espe- cially since Congress changed little in the election. "Pretty much all of the same players are still there," he says. The challenge is funding, says analyst Jonathan Starks, chief operating officer of transportation research group FTR. "Lots of candidates have called for good investment in infrastructure, but the trouble is coming up with mechanisms to pay for it," he says. Trump says he would offer tax incen- tives to private businesses for investing in infrastructure projects. "The closest Trump came to suggesting how things might be paid for is through privatizing," Spencer says. "That sounds good to the financial community, but it generally doesn't play out that well on Main Street — it simply means more tolls. The tried-and-true mechanism of paying for roads and bridges is through fuel tax- es. If that's ruled out, the dilemma gets bigger and harder to resolve." Trump has not mentioned fuel taxes, so the longstanding stalemate over high- way funding could continue. For more than a decade, some groups have lobbied for revamping the fuel tax structure that supports the Highway Trust Fund. The federal motor fuels tax is based on cents- per-gallon formulas that haven't changed since 1993. With inflation since then, plus fuel-ef- ficiency improvements in all vehicles, the fixed-rate arrangement has produced tens of billions in highway funding deficits. Because fuel tax increases are unpopular with voters, there's been no concerted effort on Capitol Hill for change. Kidd says Congress could act as early as next year on a major infrastructure funding bill. He says Trump has hinted at bonds, which have proven to be an effective way to finance infrastructure by borrowing against future fuel tax rev- enue. "It will be interesting to see what would be supported by trucking compa- nies," he says. "We always want better roads until we look around and see who's going to pay for them." Trump also has mentioned a nation- al infrastructure bank, an idea often proposed by Democrats but never acted upon by Congress. President Obama pushed for such a mechanism several times, but the idea fell flat with Repub- licans in Congress. It's unclear whether GOP officials now will support a dedi- cated infrastructure fund with Trump's backing. The electronic logging device mandate is expected to remain intact with Trump in the White House, but there's hope for regulatory changes elsewhere, including emissions regulations, hours of service and greater scrutiny of how regulators interact with trucking.