
Former FMCSA Administrator Annette Sandberg supports the trucking industry's push for a study on the impact of the current restart provision while rolling the restart rules back to pre-July 2013. Sandberg says the trucking industry supports suspending the restart restrictions because they believe that good public policy comes from good data and a good understancfing of the facts, not from emotional appeals.
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Partisan differences halted Senate debate on an appropriations bill that includes a suspension of the 34-hour restart provision of the hours of service rule. As the debate began, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., introduced an amendment that would change Sen. Susan Collins’s provision calling for suspension of the restart and a study of its impact.
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Amid warnings about a looming cutoff in highway funding, two Senators are proposing an old-fashioned fix: raise the federal fuel tax. Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Bob Corker, R-Tenn., proposed raising gasoline and diesel taxes six cents a year for two years, then indexing them to the Consumer Price Index.
Read More →The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration says it's time to raise motor carrier insurance minimums. This week the House of Representatives said, not so fast. Editor in Chief Deborah Lockridge looks at some of the pros and cons in her All That's Trucking Blog.
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The trucking industry effort to suspend the current 34-hour restart provision of the hours of service rule missed a gear Tuesday when the House passed an appropriations bill that does not contain such a provision.
Read More →The crash that critically injured comedian Tracy Morgan and killed another passenger in his vehicle has generated a media frenzy about last week's move to suspend a controversial portion of the new hours of service regulations. Editor in Chief Deborah Lockridge looks at the situation in her All That's Trucking blog.
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UPDATED -- The U.S. House approved an amendment that would stop the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration from changing insurance minimums. The amendment is a long way from becoming law but it highlights opposition to the agency even considering a change in the minimums.
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Congress is considering a plan to study the 34-hour restart provision of the hours of service rule using data collected by electronic logs. This approach is being suggested by the Trucking Alliance and other groups to counter the effort by American Trucking Associations to have Congress cut off funds for enforcement of the restart provision.
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Several House Republicans are proposing a national standard to protect buyers of trucking services from claims that they were negligent when selecting the carrier. The bill by Rep. John Duncan, R-Tenn., says that shippers and brokers would not be liable for negligence claims at the state level if they made sure that the carrier is registered at the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, has the required insurance and does not have an unsatisfactory safety rating.
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Work on the highway bill continues next week with a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on safety policy. The Subcommittee on Surface Transportation will convene Tuesday, June 3 to take testimony on “The Safety and Effectiveness of our Transportation Systems.” Witnesses have not yet been named.
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