Editorial: Senate Freezes Hours Rulemaking

The Senate listened to reason and voted last week to prohibit the Department of Transportation from finalizing its misguided hours-of-service proposal.

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In passing its DOT appropriations bill for next year on a unanimous vote, senators told the agency it couldn’t spend any of its money on changing the hours rules. That act, if adopted by the House too, would keep DOT from installing new hours of service for trucking before Oct. 1, 2001.

This provision, along with the entire Senate bill, now goes to a conference committee for reconciliation with the House appropriations measure. The committee will go to work amid indications that at least some key House members of the joint body will be amenable to the Senate’s hours moratorium and agree to its adoption in the final legislative package.

That’s what we hope will happen, for trucking’s sake.

Not one senator dissented on the moratorium when the bill came up for a floor vote June 15 — even after DOT Secretary Rodney Slater agreed to extend the comment period on his department’s proposal by 90 days, as requested by various trucking, shipping and labor interests, including American Trucking Associations.

The Senate moratorium ensures that DOT won’t rush to judgment on its plan, but instead will listen to the myriad questions, suggestions and complaints voiced by those who will be directly and deeply affected by any changes in the rules.

As we have been saying for years, the hours-of-service regulations must be modernized. But the changes must be based on sound science, taking into account the major advancements in technology in the 61 years since the original rules were adopted, and the knowledge we have gained on how our bodies work in terms of rest-work cycles.

We also hope DOT uses the additional time to more closely examine the economic impact of its proposal, especially the effect it will have on the nation’s economy, and in particular on small trucking companies.

The DOT proposal would force the hiring of tens of thousands of new drivers to move the freight that the industry is already being asked to move. And the industry is already struggling to fill its truck cabs with qualified operators.

New work rules must include productivity gains to let trucking continue moving the ever-growing volume of freight safely and efficiently.

We think the added time will help the department refine its proposal, and in that process gain the support of truckers, shippers and safety advocates — support that is noticeably absent today.