Different routes

Contrasting highway bills introduced by committees in the House and Senate in early June provide a glimpse into what the final version of the legislation may look like.

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s bill would provide $1 billion for truck parking, but it also would increase minimum insurance requirements for motor carriers by 167% and potentially lead to several “anti-trucker” mandates.

Meanwhile, the Senate Commerce Science & Transportation Committee’s version was a bipartisan effort that did not include any increases to the minimum insurance requirement.

A lot could still change before the current surface reauthorization bill expires at the end of September, but the different approaches indicate that partisan measures, such as increasing truckers’ minimum insurance from $750,000 to $2 million, would face significant hurdles in the Senate.

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association said the Senate bill shows that an insurance increase is a “toxic” proposal that has little chance of becoming law.

“The bill is not perfect, but it represents a remarkable contrast from the highly partisan abomination working its way through the House,” OOIDA President Todd Spencer said in mid-June. “We warned members of the T&I Committee that a bipartisan Senate bill would never include a toxic insurance increase, and we were right.”

Surface Transportation Investment Act of 2021

The Senate’s Surface Transportation Investment Act of 2021, introduced by committee chairwoman Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., did not include such OOIDA-opposed measures as an insurance increase and a sleep apnea screening mandate.

Also on the good side, the bill includes an OOIDA-backed provision designed to improve the National Consumer Complaint Database.

However, OOIDA does take issue with provisions in the bill that call for an automatic emergency braking mandate and language involving side underride guards.

Other measures in the bill with significance to the trucking industry include:

• Revising the Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee to include small-business motor carriers and extending the committee through September 2025.
• Allowing funding to support the prevention of human trafficking.
• Requiring the DOT secretary to carry out a comprehensive study of commercial motor vehicle crash causation.
• Promoting women to enter the trucking industry.
• Creating a truck leasing task force.
• Requiring the DOT secretary to submit a report on the FMCSA’s use of electronic logging devices regarding the protection of personal information.

On June 16, an amendment was added to create an under-21 pilot program for interstate drivers. The bill was approved and headed to the full Senate.

INVEST in America Act

As of mid-June, the $547 billion INVEST in America Act had passed committee and was headed to the House floor where it was expected to be approved. However, the bill is likely to have a more difficult time in the Senate. A year ago, a similar version of the highway bill died in the Senate.

OOIDA called the provision for truck parking a major win but still opposed the bill as of press time because of the insurance increase and several other “poison pills.”

“While this bill will likely pass the House in a few weeks, we’re relieved it has zero chance of advancing in the U.S. Senate,” Spencer said in mid-June. “We’re extremely disappointed our efforts to improve the legislation for truckers were flatly rejected by committee Democrats, but many of the most problematic provisions that remain in the bill are simply too controversial to gather sufficient support in the Senate.”

The INVEST in America Act would dedicate $343 billion to roads, bridges, and safety.

Following through on House T&I chairman Peter DeFazio’s promise to OOIDA earlier this year, the bill would provide $1 billion over five years for a grant program to address the shortage of parking for commercial motor vehicles to improve the safety of commercial motor vehicle drivers. None of the projects could charge for truck parking.

The $1 billion investment surpasses the $755 million over five years sought in the Truck Parking Safety Improvement Act.

However, there also are plenty of provisions in HR3684 that OOIDA opposes.

OOIDA opposes

• Increase minimum insurance requirements on motor carriers from $750,000 to $2 million.
• Initiate a rulemaking for sleep apnea screenings.
• Require FMCSA to review its changes to the hours-of-service rules established in 2020 and to create specific limits on the use of personal conveyance.
• Require new heavy-duty commercial motor vehicles to be equipped with automatic emergency braking.
• Research and consider the feasibility of installing side underride guards.
• Return CSA scores to public view.
• Create new authority for congestion pricing.

‘Punishing’ truckers

OOIDA said it was pleasantly surprised by the “remarkable” investment of $1 billion to address the truck parking crisis, but it will aggressively oppose the bill until the insurance increase and several other “anti-trucker provisions” are removed.

“Everyone knows this increase will do absolutely nothing to improve safety on our highways and will destroy small trucking businesses,” Spencer said. “What good is a highway bill when it does more to support the unbridled greed of trial lawyers than truckers?”

Dubbed the “poison pill” by OOIDA when the measure was added to last year’s highway bill, the insurance increase would hike motor carriers’ minimum liability insurance by 167%.

The provision led to a fiery debate during a House T&I Committee markup hearing on June 9. Rep. Mike Bost, offering an amendment to remove the insurance increase from the bill, said the provision was a “punishment” to truckers.

“Over the past year during the time of this pandemic we’ve relied pretty hard on the working people who drive trucks across the nation,” Bost said. “Now after praising these individuals for their great work, this legislation turns around and punishes them.”

Several other House Republicans spoke in favor of the amendment, noting that less than 1% of crashes aren’t covered under the current requirement and that the costs would be passed onto households across the nation as the United States attempts to recover from the latest economic crisis.

In spite of more than 30 minutes of debate – largely in favor of the amendment – the T&I Committee stuck mostly to party lines, rejecting Bost’s amendment by a recorded vote of 38-30.

No Democrats voted for the Bost amendment, and only one Republican – Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., – voted against it.

“Democrats on the T&I Committee had a choice to make,” Spencer said. “They could have stood with OOIDA members, farmers, ranchers, manufacturers, builders and every other business engaged with trucking who strongly opposed this increase or vote to further line the pockets of trial lawyers, some of their most reliable political contributors. Unfortunately, they once again uniformly chose trial lawyers over truckers.”

Bost said the increase of $1.25 million was a punishment to the nation’s truckers.

“There is not one credible ounce of research that indicates that we needed to increase this and by all means not by (167%),” Bost said.

“Many of you don’t understand this, but I was born and raised and actually ran the family trucking company for 10 years. I know and understand what they go through. I know and understand what they went through this last year, and for all of a sudden to come out and punish them … And it’s true, it’s punishment whenever it isn’t justified to raise it this much.”

Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-Ill.), who introduced the amendment last year to include the increase, called the 167% increase “modest.”

“Raising the minimum insurance requirement is a fix in search of a problem,” Rep. Garret Graves, R-La., said. “My friend across the aisle made note that this is a ‘modest’ increase. Madam Chair this is a (167%) increase … That is an extraordinary amount of money.”

Graves referenced a June 2021 article from Land Line Magazine that quoted Joe Deems, executive director of the National Risk Retention Association, as saying that an increase would not have any positive effect on safety and has “nothing whatsoever to do with safety.”

Implying that the motivation for the increase comes from trial lawyers, Graves noted that last year he asked for none of the money from the increase to go to attorneys.

“You could hear crickets,” Graves said. “They all knew. They knew that this was exactly what it was designed to do.”

Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., spoke in favor of the increase.

“We know there are truckers out there who perform a service, but we represent people and people are getting injured from time to time by these truckers and they deserve to have a level of insurance that will protect them,” Johnson said.

Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., took offense to Johnson’s comments.

“Just listening to some of these comments about protecting people from ‘those truckers … those truckers.’ I heard it over and over again. It’s almost as if they’re the enemy, and they’re not. It’s going to come down to one simple choice … you either choose those truck drivers who are trying to support their families, or you choose trial attorneys.” LL