Feinstein Vows to Keep Fighting Senate’s HOS Restart Measure

This story appears in the June 16 print edition of Transport Topics.

With a fiscal 2015 transportation funding bill expected on the Senate floor this week, senior Democrats are gearing up to challenge a provision in the bill that would suspend last year’s changes to the hours-of-service restart rules.

Led by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the senators plan to offer proposals to undo provisions in the Transportation and Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill that would suspend for one year last year’s changes to the HOS restart provision.

Feinstein said the recent fatal truck-involved crash on the New Jersey Turnpike that killed one man and injured three others, including comedian and actor Tracy Morgan, fueled her determination to “continue to fight” provisions offered by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).

Under Collins’ proposal, the bill would lift a restriction that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s 34-hour restart rule be used only once within a seven-day period. It also would suspend the requirement that drivers’ rest time include consecutive 1 a.m.-to-5 a.m. segments.

The FMCSA would have one year to review the safety effects of the rule changes. The agency also would be required to report to Congress to justify its safety claims.

Senate appropriators adopted Collins’ proposal last week during the bill’s committee consideration by a vote of 21-9. The panel’s measure also includes a provision to require FMCSA to issue a final rule mandating electronic logging devices by Jan. 30.

Feinstein, along with Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the chamber’s top transportation appropriator, were among the senators who voted against Collins’ restart amendment.

“I strongly opposed the suspension of these regulations in committee,” Feinstein said. “These [restart] provisions have been extensively studied, debated and litigated, and Congress should not interfere and risk endangering more motorists and truck drivers.”

Collins and those colleagues who backed her proposal, including several Democrats, intend to defend the change to the bill, a senior Republican aide told Transport Topics on the condition of anonymity.

A spokesman for the American Trucking Associations defended Collins’ proposal, noting that a bipartisan majority of senators “put safety first” to suspend parts of the restart rule.

“We would hope that we would see a similar bipartisan majority maintain this common-sense request to ask that these provisions be suspended while they are studied and that data is analyzed,” said Sean McNally, ATA’s vice president of public affairs.

Senate leaders are planning to debate the bill along with other spending legislation for two weeks starting as early as June 16. The transportation bill might be the first to be considered, but the exact timing would be determined by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

On June 10, the House passed its $52 billion fiscal 2015 transportation spending bill. It would direct FMCSA to offer Congress scientific evidence supporting the benefits of the restart changes (see story, p. 3).

For Collins’ provision to advance, a majority of senators probably would need to clear a series of procedural hurdles when the bill is on the floor, before passing the bill with the provision in it. Senators and House lawmakers then would need to reconcile differences in their bills and keep Collins’ provision in a compromise bill that both chambers would need to pass before it reaches President Obama for his signature.

Overall, the Senate’s $54.4 billion transportation funding legislation is more than the Obama administration’s request of $51 million and the fiscal 2014 level of $50.8 billion.

Bill sponsors noted the measure, like the House bill, lacked a funding solution for the depleting Highway Trust Fund account.

The Senate bill would provide $40.3 billion for federal-aid highway programs that would be contingent on a funding system that would have to be authorized by Senate policy writers. Murray took to the floor last week to urge colleagues to shore up the fund.

According to DOT’s projections, the fund will run out of money as early as late July. House and Senate transportation leaders have yet to agree on a funding system to avoid a shortfall.

The Senate bill also would provide $550 million next year to the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery, or TIGER, program. It also would provide $834 million for the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration and $104 million for the National Transportation Safety Board.