Lawmakers on Capitol Hill will look at legislation that would provide a short-term authorization of the Federal Aviation Administration to attach technical language pertaining to an hours-of-service rule for truckers in a fiscal 2016 funding law.
“If an acceptable solution can be worked out, the most likely vehicle to fix the glitch is the extension of the FAA authorization that Congress must pass by the end of March,” an American Trucking Associations spokesman told Transport Topics on Feb. 17.
FAA’s authorization expires at the end of March, and transportation leaders are unlikely to have an FAA reauthorization bill ready for President Obama’s desk by that deadline. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee reported an FAA reauthorizing bill earlier this month.
At issue is a so-called glitch in a fiscal 2016 funding law, known as an omnibus, that would require federal regulators to eliminate an hours-of-service rule, not just a 34-hour restart provision, if a federal study of the restart rule fails to show safety benefits.
“The impact of the omission is that if the congressionally directed study shows that there were not safety and other benefits to the restart restrictions, then the entire restart — the ability to take a 34-hour rest and reset your weekly clock — goes away,” the ATA spokesman said. “We are working with lawmakers to reach a solution that keeps America’s freight moving safely and efficiently.”
The spokesman added, “The glitch in the legislative language has the potential to put this safety rule at risk.”
