Congress Can Deliver the Hours

A truck-driving California congressman suggested that if officials at the Department of Transportation can’t pull the trigger on new hours-of-service regulations, Congress should do it for them.

Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.) said at a meeting of the Agricultural Transporters Conference that a legislative solution might be the answer to the long-awaited reform.

Haulers of agricultural goods are especially concerned about the fate of the rules since their business involves an annual harvest-time rush to deliver time-sensitive goods.

Hours-of-service reform "is something that should have been settled. The only reason it hasn’t is that you ha-ven’t made a big enough deal out of it," Pombo told members of the conference, who were in Washington, D.C., and Alexandria, Va., for their first Legislative & Leadership Conference and annual meeting from June 14 to 15. The agricultural haulers are a managed conference of American Trucking Associations.

Pombo, who has a commercial driver license and whose family business owns a feed lot and nine trucks in his home state, said he thought a regulatory solution would be difficult to come by since the current administration seems more intent on not angering special interests.

For the full story, see the June 21 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.

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