Truck Dealers Need to Educate Regulators to Ensure Fair Rulemakings, ATD Says
This story appears in the Feb. 3 print edition of Transport Topics.
NEW ORLEANS — Rather than touting the accomplishments of his two-year stint heading American Truck Dealers, Chairman Dick Witcher used the annual convention to focus on the many industry challenges that remain.
In his final speech as chairman on Jan. 25, Witcher, who is CEO of Minuteman Trucks in Walpole, Mass., said ATD had arranged 60 congressional visits to truck dealerships during his tenure but called these visits “the first step in combating the regulatory burden.”
Moving forward, he said ATD should ramp up these efforts with Congress as well as reach out to other federal and regional regulators.
“It’s key in helping them to understand our business and use us as a resource, before they make regulations that hurt our industry,” Witcher said. Rulemakings and enforcement policies “deeply affect the public, our industry and the very fabric of how we function.”
This was a theme echoed by new ATD Chairman Eric Jorgensen, CEO of JX Enterprises in Hartland, Wis.
“Educating our elected officials is a constant process, and it needs to be a priority. They don’t all understand what it takes to sell and support trucks to the American traveling public,” Jorgensen said.
He told Transport Topics that he has participated in seven visits with federal and state lawmakers in the past 18 months. He said he enjoys taking them for a drive in a truck because they “tend to remember the experience better.”
Witcher also expressed concerns about future fuel economy and greenhouse-gas regulations from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration.
“We need to make sure that new fuel economy standards for trucks are not only good for the environment but fair — and affordable — for the people who make them, sell them and drive them,” he said.
He said he has grown more concerned following a recent meeting between ATD leaders and government officials.
“We came away amazed by the lack of understanding about our industry, which they are jointly regulating,” Witcher said. “Do you know they actually asked if a trailer came with a new tractor and why did trucks need to be so different from one another?”
Jorgensen told TT that officials from EPA’s National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Lab in Ann Arbor, Mich., have agreed to visit his dealership in the coming months, providing another opportunity for ATD to share its views.
Witcher said if the government moves forward without additional industry input, it is certain to hurt dealers.
“These regulations will cause another steep drop in new truck sales — inevitably hurting our business, again,” he said. “We are urging EPA to adequately consider the cost to consumers and the loss of jobs before settling on a standard.”
As for the federal excise tax — another critical issue facing truck dealers — Witcher said ATD continues to oppose any efforts to increase the tax on new truck sales.
“The 12% levy is already the highest excise tax imposed by Congress on a percentage basis. Increasing this tax could further hurt our industry and stall new truck sales,” he said.
Witcher said ATD supports a bipartisan bill from Reps. Reid Ribble (R-Wis.) and Tim Walz (D-Minn.) that will maintain the 12% rate.
Witcher also told dealers they should already be preparing for operational changes when the expansion of the Panama Canal is completed in 2015.
With the larger ships gaining easier access to ports along the East and Gulf coasts, commerce patterns will be altered, along with truck-buying patterns.
“A 400-mile radius from any Gulf or Eastern port can get cargo to the heartland in one day, not three,” he said. “New or restructured distribution and redistribution centers will change the economics of trucking and move more owners to lower cost Class 6 and 7 vehicles.”
