Truckers in Rhode Island tell officials, ‘A deal is a deal’

The Rhode Island Trucking Association is voicing opposition to the state’s plan to reinstate its truck-only tolling program.

In a letter to Gov. Dan McKee and members of the state’s General Assembly, the trucking group is urging legislators to oppose reinstating the tolls after the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the tolls – specifically the daily caps placed on the fees – to be unconstitutional.

In September 2022, a U.S. District Court in Rhode Island ruled that the state’s truck tolling plan violated the dormant commerce clause – which prohibits states from imposing charges with the intent to discriminate in favor of domestic, and against out-of-state or interstate, entities.

However, this past December, following an over two-year legal battle, a federal court ruled that the state would be able to resume its truck-only tolls – with the caveat that they remove the daily caps, which the court said disproportionately benefited in-state trucking companies. With the door open for the state to resume the program, it became a matter of when – not if – the tolls would return.

The answer to that question would become a bit clearer in January, when the governor’s office released its 2025-2026 fiscal budget projecting the state would generate $10 million in 2025 from the truck-only tolls. While no concrete date was given for when the tolls would resume, the estimated figures indicated they would likely be reinstated in the fourth quarter of the 2025-2026 fiscal year.

Absent of the caps, the group is opposed to the state turning the tolls back on. According to the trucking group, those caps were added the to the 2016 legislation that established the tolls as means to “protect local businesses and stymie opposition” for the tolling program.

“The caps were a covenant made with the local business community and within the General Assembly to ensure passage,” Christopher Maxwell, president of the Rhode Island Trucking Association, said in the group’s letter. “Proceeding to reactivate the tolls without the caps would defy a promise made a decade ago and would decimate our state’s supply chain by levying unsustainable tolls on the local trucking industry, small businesses and ultimately the consumer.”

Maxwell said that operating under an uncapped program would place the lion’s share of the tolls collected from the program – an estimated 94% – upon local businesses.

“This is not even close to the legislation passed in 2016, and our state’s leaders have an obligation to stop any version of it from being implemented,” Maxwell said. “The program was originally meant to target interstate carriers, and now it’s all backfired. A deal is a deal.”

In its letter to state officials, the trucking group offered what it called “less impactful and more sustainable and equitable options to fund infrastructure.” Some of those suggestions include increasing the state’s diesel tax as well as fees on truck registration and overweight permits. LL