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Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee Holds Truck Size and Weight Hearing
The House
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee held hearings last week on
truck size and weight. We have summarized some of the key points and copied some of the statements made by the key Members of
Congress. Also, you will find the ATA's proposal
for bigger trucks as the final item in the email.
1. Most
of the Members of the Committee and the panelists at the
hearing think that the current federal truck size and weight system is
broken -- truck size and weight limits vary widely from state to state
and overweight permits are granted at an alarming rate with little
regard to highway impacts and costs. Yet, several of the Members at
the hearing were primarily interested in obtaining further truck size and
weight exemptions for their favored commodities or industries. There
was no consensus as to what should be done to fix the system. Since
changing the size and weight limits has always meant raising the limits,
this is something we will need to watch carefully.
2. Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman
Oberstar clearly continues to have concerns about the dangers and
infrastructure costs of bigger trucks. At the same time, however, he
invited the truckers to come back to the Committee with evidence that
bigger trucks would mean fewer trucks, and that they could be operated
safely and pay for the full costs of the damage they do.
3. Trucking companies and shipper groups are
seeking major increases in truck weights and lengths claiming enhanced
fuel savings and environmental benefits. See list of American Trucking
Associations' (ATA) 8 recommendations below.
4. There continues to be strong opposition to any
increases in truck size or weight from safety groups, and this time
around the Teamsters have taken a strong stance in opposition to bigger
trucks.
"I don't
think anybody can say the current system makes much sense in any
meaningful way. You can't even call it a
system." Opening statement by Subcommittee Chair
Peter DeFazio (D-OR).
"Truck size and weight regulations are a patchwork of Federal
standards from which there are seemingly countless exceptions based on
grandfather rights granted to States over the last 50 years.
In addition, the authority of states to liberally issue oversize and
overweight permits has led to a system in which it is difficult to know
which is more prevalent -- the rules or the exceptions."
Opening statement by Committee Chair Jim Oberstar (D-MN).
"Studies have documented a variety of safety issues involving
heavier and longer trucks....Implementing size and weight changes first
and evaluating consequences later is a naive and dangerous
approach. Before any changes to truck size and weight laws are
contemplated, we must therefore carefully study the impacts of any
proposed changes....With this in mind, I proposed a limited, very
narrowly-crafted pilot program last year in two states that would include
a rigorous analysis of safety and infrastructure impacts, and would have
required users and states to "pay to
play." Ultimately, the two states I engaged on this
concept and other players had little interest in meeting these terms and
conditions." Opening statement of Rep. Oberstar.
"In the course of considering the SAFETEA-LU legislation, we had 14
requests from various interests for exemptions for various times of the
year for heavier and longer combination vehicles. Everything
from cotton modules, which I didn't know existed until someone from Arkansas came up
with that proposal, sugar cane and sugar beets, and potatoes and lumber
and raw logs and goodness knows. There were 14 of them. We'll
face the same issue in the next authorization cycle and I'm going
to tell you that I'm going to take a stand right now
saying "no." The burden is on you to prove that
there will not be an adverse effect on the road surface or on those
76,000 structurally deficient bridges or those other 77,000 functionally
deficient bridges on the National Highway System."
Statement by Rep. Oberstar.
"As we move into the authorization next year, we have to balance the
weights on the road surface and bridges. We have 76,000
structurally deficient bridges in this country; we have an equal number
of functionally deficient bridges for a total of 153,000 bridges in those
two categories. . . It's going to be a big challenge for us to balance
all of these various requests, so I think that for those who are
advocating for heavier weights, the burden is on you to prove that it's
going to reduce the number of vehicles on the road. Those who are
advocating for longer combination vehicles and for maintaining the
exemptions, the burden is on those advocates to prove that it's not going
to deteriorate highway safety and I'm, frankly, in favor of removing
those grandfather clauses, limiting our interstates and national highway
system to single vehicles, and other measures in our safety portion of
our program to drive that 5,000 fatality number down, to take the 43,000
fatalities on our highways down, take the 26 billion accidents a year
down substantially. If the European Community can do it, we can do
it, too. Well, I recommend you all put your thinking caps on and
give us your further thoughts on these issues that we've discussed at
great length today." Statement by Rep. Oberstar.
- Thaw the LCV
Freeze and allow long double and triple trailer trucks to
operate on all of the Interstates and many of the secondary highways
in the west.
- Allow states
to raise the 80,000 lb Interstate truck weight
limit to 97,000 lbs for 6-axle single trailer trucks.
- Remove the 80,000
gross vehicle weight limit on 5-axle single trailer
trucks.
- Allow
"limited expansion" of LCVs in the east.
- Require states to
allow 53 foot trailers.
- Allow double 33 foot
trailers at weights up to 11,000 lbs.
- Allow a 10% axle
and gross weight tolerance for auto transporters.
- Require states to
grant truck operators a 400 lb weight exemption for Alternative
Power Units that reduce fuel use during idling.
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