No truck parking funding in T&I bill; OOIDA pushes for amendment

A markup hearing on the House Transportation & Infrastructure budget reconciliation bill is scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 14. For now, the bill does not include any funding for truck parking.

“Congress never fails to disappoint when you’re a trucker,” said Collin Long, OOIDA’s director of government affairs. “Even when they can easily deliver a major bipartisan victory that will address a growing safety issue that affects millions of Americans, they fail.”

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association is now working on getting an amendment introduced to the bill that would include funding for truck parking.

OOIDA has been working throughout the congressional session to secure funding for truck parking.

In March, Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., introduced the Truck Parking Safety Improvement Act, or HR2187, which would provide $755 million to truck parking capacity over five years. The bill has 25 co-sponsors.

In addition, Rep. Peter DeFazio, chair of the House T&I Committee, pledged earlier this year to OOIDA President Todd Spencer that he would meaningful address the truck parking crisis in the highway bill. Following up on that pledge, the House highway bill included $1 billion to add parking capacity for tractor-trailers. After passing the House, however, the bill stalled in the Senate.

In August, Sens. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., and Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., introduced a parking amendment to the Senate infrastructure bill, but it was not included.

Earlier this week, Reps. Angie Craig, D-Minn., and John Garamendi, D-Calif., wrote to DeFazio a request for $1 billion for truck parking be included in the House T&I’s portion of the reconciliation package.

“The reconciliation process represents our best opportunity to address this issue immediately,” Craig and Garamendi wrote. “If we fail to act now, it will likely be another five years before Congress considers infrastructure legislation as part of a highway reauthorization. Based on recent trends, parking shortages will only get worse during this time.”

With truck parking funding not included in the T&I bill, OOIDA is focusing on having an amendment introduced.

The House T&I markup hearing will be 10 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday, Sept. 14. The hearing will be livestreamed here. LL