Transportation Committee Leadership Vows to Block Any Cut in Truck Drivers’ Hours

House transportation committee leaders told President Obama they will “aggressively” work to block any changes in hours-of-service rules that would cut drivers’ hours.

In a Sept. 23 letter to Obama, Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and two subcommittee chairmen said they “will aggressively oversee any attempt by the U.S. DOT to impose new regulatory burdens on the trucking industry by making changes to the current hours-of-service rules.”

Mica’s letter did not specify what action he would consider, but his spokesman, Justin Harclerode, said, “We’ll watch developments closely, and consider all possible courses of action should the rule changes as proposed move forward.”

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is considering a new rule that could cut a full hour of allowable driving time out of the legal workday for commercial drivers.

There is precedent for congressional action.

Congress most recently got directly involved in HOS in 2004. Lawmakers stepped in after a federal appeals court said a new FMCSA rule that increased driver time behind the heel from 10 to 11 hours did not take into account driver health.

Congress passed a measure that said the rule was to stay in effect while FMCSA made revisions to satisfy the court.

The agency is scheduled to announce changes to the HOS rules on Oct. 28 that the trucking industry and business groups have said could have a negative effect on productivity and the U.S. economy.

Under current HOS rules, drivers are allowed to drive 11 hours at a time before taking a long break. Among the rule changes FMCSA is considering is one that would reduce driving time to 10 hours.

“We are very concerned the proposed changes will result in additional trucks and drivers on the road to deliver the same amount of freight, adding to final product costs and increasing congestion on our already overburdened highways,” Mica’s letter stated.

The other signers included Rep. John J. Duncan (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, and Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), chairman of the Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials.

Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.), chairman of the House Small Business Committee and a member of the transportation committee, also signed the letter.

Congress has not been directly involved in writing the rules that govern how many hours drivers can stay behind the wheel between rest periods. The proposed rules changes, unveiled Dec. 23, resulted from a court settlement FMCSA reached with advocacy groups that have twice sued and won in federal court to block revisions the agency has tried to make to driving time rules that stretch back to the 1930s.

Even though the changes stem from a court settlement, Congress could insert itself in the rule making, said Fred McLuckie, legislative director for the Teamsters Union, which wants drivers to work fewer hours.

“It’s happened before where Congress has enacted legislation to prevent a court settlement or a court action from taking place — but it’s very unusual,” McLuckie said.

“I think what they could do is put a rider on the appropriations bill that would prevent the department from expending funds to enact the new regulations,” McLuckie said. Congress did that in 2001.

Congress also could try legislatively to change elements of the HOS rules, but that may not satisfy the court, McLuckie said.

McLuckie took issue with the assertion in the Mica letter that changes in the HOS rules would result in “a drag” on the economy.

Congress is supposed to be “about jobs,” and the proposed rule changes would create 40,000 new jobs in the trucking industry because fewer driving hours would mean carriers would have to hire more drivers, McLuckie said.

In addition to potentially reducing driving time by one hour, the proposed rule would restrict drivers’ current ability to restart their weekly work cycle with a 34-hour rest period. That change would effectively cut the total work cycle because drivers would be required to have two six-hour rest periods between midnight and 6 a.m. within that window.

The new rules also would reduce maximum on-duty time allowed to 13 hours by making drivers take two 30-minute rest breaks during what is now the allowed 14-hour duty time.

When it released the proposed rules changes in December, FMCSA did not say it would reduce the driving hours to 10, but did say it was leaning in that direction.

Sean McNally, spokesman for American Trucking Associations, said the trucking industry would like Congress “to take the current rule and put it into law for a period of years tied with an [electronic onboard recorder] mandate so we can get good data.”

The congressmen in their letter said that since implementation of the current HOS rules, “There has been a reduction in severe and fatal crashes involving large trucks, even as truck mileage has increased by almost 10 billion miles.”

FMCSA has been trying to draw up HOS rules since the agency was created by Congress in 1999, but rule proposals have been scrapped for being too complex and highway safety advocates have waged a legal battle aimed at reducing the hours drivers can sit behind the wheel.