Maine, Vermont Truck Groups to Push For Permanent Weight Exemption

This story appears in the Oct. 18 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

Supporters of a White House-backed push to grant Maine and Vermont a permanent exemption from the 80,000-pound truck weight limit on interstate highways said they will make a second attempt to persuade Congress to act before a pilot program expires on Dec. 16.

“We haven’t given up hope,” said Robert Sculley, president of the Vermont Truck and Bus Association. “Our members are constantly writing our delegation and asking for their continued support.”

“The problem is we need . . . enough of Congress to agree that, in Vermont, we know what’s best for our state and our people and our transportation needs,” Sculley said.

The Obama administration asked the Senate Appropriations Committee to include a permanent exemption for trucks up to 100,000 pounds in a continuing budget resolution passed in late September, but the committee refused to consider any attachments.

Congress authorized the pilot program that has allowed trucks up to 100,000 pounds to run this year on interstate highways in Vermont and Maine.

If the pilot expires and there is no permanent exemption, trucks weighing more than 80,000 pounds will resume runs on local roads, many of which wind through the center of the small towns that populate the New England states.

“Law enforcement is going to be put in an unfortunate position if it were to expire,” said Brian Parke, president of the Maine Motor Transport Association. Police will have to direct heavy trucks back onto smaller local roads, he said.

“We’re going to hold out hope, and we’re going to think positively and go about our business [of persuading Congress to act],” Parke said. “But if things go sideways, and we’re not able to run the safer road on Dec. 17, we’ll have to communicate that to the trucking community.”

Sens. Susan Collins (R) of Maine and Patrick Leahy (D) of Vermont sponsored the legislation that created the pilot program and tried to persuade the Appropriations Committee to address the permanent weight exemption.

“He’s continuing to work on that on the Appropriations Committee,” a Leahy spokesman, David Carle, told Transport Topics.

Leahy and Collins are members of the Appropriations Committee.

Kevin Kelley, communications director for Collins, said she “will continue to try and push for a permanent fix to lift the federal highway truck weight limits in Maine.”

It is not clear, though, how budget bills and attachments will be addressed in the “lame-duck” session of Congress after the November elections.

Congress could pass a comprehensive spending bill for 2011 or fund government with another continuing budget resolution. The current resolution expires Dec. 3.

One of those working to secure the permanent weight exemption, John Runyan, executive director of the Coalition for Transportation Productivity, said supporters will try again to attach the exemption to the next continuing budget resolution.

President Obama has endorsed that concept, Runyan said.

However, Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.) is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, and his support is uncertain.

“As a general rule, Obey opposes riders on appropriations bills because they, as a general rule, make it more difficult to pass the bills,” said an Obey spokesman, Paul Carver.

Carver said everything in Congress is on hold until after the elections and that he did not know Obey’s specific position on a weight exemption for Vermont and Maine.