Meal and Rest Provision Sought in Funding Bill
This story appears in the April 24 print edition of Transport Topics.
Trucking executives are urging congressional leaders to attach a clarifying provision to a meal and rest break rule in a funding bill that would avert a shutdown of federal agencies set to begin at the end of the month.
Led by American Trucking Associations, the industry is pressing lawmakers on Capitol Hill to include a pre-emption measure designed to clarify a requirement in a 1994 aviation law in order to block a California law signed in 2011.
“Such a clarification will allow trucking companies to continue to provide the level of service that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has determined is consistent with safe operations and driver welfare,” ATA wrote to its members earlier this year.
Absent the clarification, the industry would operate without uniformity in laws and regulations for motor carriers.
As ATA put it: “Multiple layers of rules threaten to impair and impede the movement of freight throughout the country, creating a substantially burdensome and redundant system of rules for operation.”
The 2011 law requires employers to provide a “duty-free” 30-minute meal break for employees who work more than five hours a day, as well as a second “duty-free” 30-minute meal break for those who work more than 10 hours a day.
Lawmakers have four legislative days to advance funding legislation to avoid a government shutdown, which if triggered, would coincide with President Donald Trump’s 100th day in office.
Senior appropriators have expressed support for the pre- emption provision, and Republican and Democratic leaders are striving to agree on a deal before the end of the week. They have expressed concerns over the adoption of a short-term continuing funding resolution to afford them additional time to finalize a fiscal 2017 bill. Federal agencies currently are funded by a short-term funding law. Funding authority for the federal government, including the U.S. Department of Transportation and its agencies, expires April 28.
Committees of jurisdiction have yet to confirm if a pre-emption provision would be part of a funding bill. White House negotiators on the funding bill also have not indicated if the trucking measure would be attached to the bill. Neither the committees nor the White House returned requests for comment by press time.
During a briefing with reporters April 19, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said administration staff has been working “with House and Senate leaders as we approach this deadline.”
A Republican aide who spoke to Transport Topics last week said there is potential for the need to pass a short-term continuing resolution that would provide the chambers additional time on a fiscal 2017 funding bill.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has asked the White House to avoid engaging in budget negotiations on Capitol Hill. After the White House unveiled its blueprint for fiscal 2018, Schumer told reporters he called on Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney to refrain from influencing funding priorities.
“I thought his budget was so far away from where both Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans — a number of them have called it dead on arrival — that his next year’s budget was sort of a nonstarter,” Schumer said in a conference call this month.
