Truck-Weight Pilot Program Wins Support
U.S. Sen. Susan Collins has persuaded her Appropriations Committee colleagues to include a provision in the government’s pending funding plan that would continue to allow trucks weighing over 80,000 pounds continue running on interstate highways in Maine and Vermont.
Collins, a Maine Republican, said Tuesday that senators had agreed to extend for another year the pilot program that she and Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy (D) have co-sponsored, which allows trucks weighing up to 100,000 pounds to run this year on federal highways in their respective states.
If the pilot program, scheduled to expire Friday, is not renewed, large trucks will be routed back to the local highways that run through smaller New England towns.
The program has the backing of President Obama, who in October asked the panel to include the weight provisions for the two states. Collins secured its inclusion in the pending “continuing resolution” that funds the federal government.
Trucking industry executives, citing projected U.S. population growth and growing freight demand, said recently that increasing the productivity of trucks by making them larger or heavier would be necessary in the future.
House members have yet to review the Senate version of the continuing resolution and it is not clear if the truck weight pilot will win support in the lower chamber.
