ATA to Focus on Recovery at Conference in Las Vegas

This story appears in the Sept. 21 print edition of Transport Topics.

After a year in which the trucking industry has been battered by a recession and buffeted by political change, members of American Trucking Associations will gather next month in Las Vegas to celebrate surviving the storm and to rally one another in preparation for the coming rebound.

“I think thematically what Las Vegas is about is lessons learned from surviving this last year, year and a half, and positioning for . . . how to be successful as the recovery begins to show itself,” said ATA President Bill Graves.

The preparations for a hoped-for recovery play against “the backdrop of the political reality that we’re going to be dealing with an Obama administration and a Democratically dominated Congress for quite some time, and there are some agenda items that are front and center that are going to be significant for our industry,” Graves said.

As ATA and its federation partners prepare to meet Oct. 4-7 at the annual Management Conference & Exhibition, Graves told Transport Topics trucking has a “very focused, businesslike intensity that’s seeking to take advantage of an economic recovery,” as opposed to past meetings, which were in large part pep rallies for the industry.

“I think everybody moved past the sort of symbolic morale boosting quite a while ago,” he said. “I think right now, it’s more the day-to-day reality of surviving and getting through this.”

The economic crash, which began in earnest in late 2007 but worsened into a crisis just before ATA’s 2008 meeting in New Orleans, has claimed a number of trucking companies and led the survivors to cut jobs and idle trucks as demand for freight slackened.

ATA’s truck tonnage index has declined for 10 straight months, most recently in July. But that index showed the slowest rate of decline since February, a sign the economy is recovering.

However, “We’ve got some stories of success in the midst of recession chaos, and we’ve got chaos in the midst of the recession,” Graves said.

“It still appears that the fortunes of how you’re doing in trucking depend a lot upon what segment of our industry you’re in, what customer base you support,” he said.

“We’ve had instances even during the worst of the recession where, if you were a refrigerated food hauler, you were still doing pretty well. If you were a specialized hazardous material hauler, you might have been benefiting from the railroads’ decision to throw some of that freight our way. Conversely, if you were involved in component parts for auto manufacturing it became as bad as it could possibly be.”

The focus on returning trucking to a healthy footing is evident in the MCE advance schedule, which is light on policy issues that had been a hallmark of recent meetings but heavy on best practices and other avenues for carriers to maximize their profitability.

Highlights of the meeting this year include the annual economic overview given by ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello, a panel of leading executives talking about “green” strategies for profitability and approaches to saving fuel.

Even with hopes for a recovery running strong, Graves said, ATA was “not going to get overly optimistic about any kind of quick recovery, even though we’re going to a town where people win jackpots in a heartbeat. That’s not generally how the trucking industry recovers.”

However, he said that, if companies have “passed muster, you’ve made the cut, you’re still standing, after what we’ve been through the last year, I think you’re thoroughly prepared to be operating on the other side of this economic recovery.”

Among the risks to that recovery Graves highlighted was another area of emphasis for ATA as members gather: the effects of the federal government dominated by Democrats.

“I’m hopeful that both congressional actions and administrative regulatory policies don’t stifle and impede that economic recovery,” he said.

Graves used the House-passed cap-and-trade energy bill as an example of potentially stifling policies, saying that “one of the stated goals is to basically drive up the cost of fossil fuels.”

“That’s our lifeblood,” he said. “That’s how we power the trucks that move commerce in this country, and if we get some economic recovery on the one hand and essentially have to give all or part of it back in higher fuel costs, we probably haven’t gained a whole lot.”

Graves also talked about the risks of possible changes to labor laws as a way the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress could stifle an economic recovery.

“I just think that the administration and Congress need to be very careful not to run so far so fast on policy and regulatory issues that they don’t give this economy a chance to get its legs under it,” he said.

Graves also said it was “disappointing” that Congress and the administration were not moving faster on ATA’s No. 1 legislative priority: reauthorizing the federal highway program.

“It’s particularly disappointing, in light of the fact that there was a lot of optimism about the potential for, I think, a very robust reauthorization as far back as the presidential campaign last fall,” he said.

When Graves spoke, the House and Senate were haggling over whether to extend the current highway spending law for another 18 months, or for a shorter time, or to work on a full six-year bill.

Past MCEs have focused on getting ATA ready for the fight over highway reauthorization, with the federation adopting what Graves calls a “three-legged stool” of programs designed to highlight trucking’s importance to the economy, its commitment to the environment and, last year, an aggressive safety agenda.

“We’re ready for our No. 1 issue . . . so there’s really very little to be done in that regard,” Graves said. “I don’t know that we’re in need of a lot of further guidance from the membership on the key issues.

“It’s more a matter of us educating them on where things stand and the steps we’ve taken to be prepared on their behalf,” he said, “and a matter of getting back here and doing our jobs when MCE is over.”

The highway bill aside, Graves said other legislative battles are darkening the sky, including health care reform, the continuing fight over climate change legislation and the “labor agenda,” which includes the Employee Free Choice Act, also known as card check.

Those issues were looming last year in New Orleans as political pundits predicted Democratic gains in Congress and an Obama victory, setting expectations for a tough political year, Graves said.

With efforts on climate change and card check, Graves said, “the congressional action has come close to living up to our expectations.

“There’s certainly been an activism in Congress, especially on the House side,” he said. “Thankfully, we’ve had great relationships and the opportunity to influence some of the thinking and actions on the Senate side, and that’s helped to hold a number of things at bay and we’re going to continue to work on that very hard.”

However, he said, there’s been “a certain delay” by the White House in handling a lot of trucking issues.

“The Obama administration has not exactly run through a lot of its appointees as quickly as you would have otherwise thought,” Graves said, highlighting the continued absence of a full-time administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

The administration sent the nomination of Anne Ferro, president of the Maryland Motor Truck Association, to the Senate in July, but she has yet to have a confirmation hearing.

“So, I think that the verdict is still out on the extent to which there will be a lot of regulatory activism, but I expect it,” he said.

Despite the economic and political challenges, Graves said, he is “eager to see everyone in Las Vegas,” but he added that the mood would be a mixture of resolve and celebration.

“We won’t be carried away; it is not a euphoric celebration,” he said. “But then again, if you’re in Las Vegas, you’ve probably got reason to celebrate that you made it through the worst financial times that we’ve experienced in our lifetime, and you’re open for business and ready to take on those new challenges.”