Rep. Bost proposes amendment to remove insurance hike from highway bill

Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., has proposed an amendment to remove a provision to increase the minimum insurance requirements for motor carriers from the highway bill.

OOIDA supports Bost Amendment 194 to strike Section 4408 of HR2, which would increase minimum insurance levels from $750,000 to $2 million.

The House Rules Committee will meet Monday, June 29, to determine which amendments will be voted on by the House later next week. The highway bill was rolled into the massive Moving Forward Act. The minimum insurance increase was added as an amendment during a House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee markup hearing earlier this month.

OOIDA refers to Section 4408 as the “poison pill” that led the Association to withdraw its support.

OOIDA said the amendment proposed by Rep. Chuy Garcia, D-Ill., would decrease highway safety and force many small motor carriers out of business.

“While we firmly supported the bill when it was introduced, the addition of the Garcia amendment has left us no choice but to reverse our position,” OOIDA wrote in an email to members of the House T&I Committee. “We cannot support legislation that will cause many of our members to lose their businesses and livelihoods. An overnight increase in minimum financial responsibility of 167% will undoubtedly devastate many small trucking businesses. The 265,000 single-truck operators working in America today will be particularly at risk.”

OOIDA has long contended that increasing the minimum insurance requirement would mostly benefit trial lawyers and would actually decrease safety because it would remove some of the most experienced and safest truck drivers from the industry. The Association said only 0.06% of crashes result in damages that exceed the current $750,000 minimum.

Rep. Bost

This isn’t the only trucker-friendly measure introduced by Rep. Bost recently. In March, Bost and Angie Craig, D-Minn., introduced HR6104, which would dedicate authorize $755 million for truck parking over five years. The Illinois Congressman comes from a trucking family.