U.S. Legislative Issues

U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-PA) has introduced H.R. 2730, the Safe and Fair Environment on Highways Achieved through Underwriting Levels Act. The bill would raise the required insurance minimum for certain truck fleets. Specifically, the bill would increase the required insurance minimum for motor carriers from $750,000 to $4,422,000. The bill would also tie the future insurance minimum requirement to the cost of medical care inflation. This legislation protects the American public as well as trucking companies by ensuring sufficient coverage is available to cover the total costs of commercial vehicle accidents.


Members of the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee debated the possibility of increasing the 18.4 cents per gallon federal gas tax at a July 13, 2013 congressional hearing. The issue was raised in the hearing due to the $20 billion shortfall that currently exists between incoming and outgoing road and transit funding.

The gas tax, which has been the traditional funding source for road and transit improvements, brings in approximately $35 billion per year. However, the last surface transportation bill that was passed by Congress spent $54 billion per year.
 
Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Natural and Physical Resources Cost Estimates Unit Chief Kim Cawley agreed, telling the Committee that "the current trajectory of the Highway Trust Fund is unsustainable.

"Starting in fiscal year 2015, the trust fund will have insufficient resources to meet all of its obligations, resulting in steadily accumulating shortfalls," Crawley said in testimony that was submitted to the panel. Crawley also said if lawmakers continue transferring money from other areas of the federal budget to make up the difference in transportation funding, as they did in the MAP-21 bill, they would have to transfer at least $15 billion in 2015 if road and transit spending remained at 2013 levels. The CBO statement is available at http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/44434-HighwayTrustFund_Testimony.pdf


On July 3, 2013, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) formally submitted recommendations to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) to consider extending the commercial driver licensure (CDL) requirement to vehicles with a GWVR below 26,001 pounds. In a July 22 letter*, NAFA Fleet Management Association requested a meeting with FMCSA officials to review the NTSB recommendations. "A missing component of NTSB’s safety report is that it makes no distinction between single-unit trucks in a managed fleet versus vehicles operated by the casual driver or vehicles in smaller, unmanaged fleets," NAFA said. "We are confident that a more detailed analysis of accident data will reflect that the safety record of most managed fleets is significantly better. In a managed fleet, safety is a primary goal." 


On July 3, 2013 the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) formally submitted recommendations to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to require new performance standards for new single unit trucks with gross vehicle weight ratings over 10,000 pounds. The recommendations include side and rear underride requirements for these vehicles. In a July 22 letter*, NAFA Fleet Management Association requested a meeting with NHTSA officials to review the NTSB recommendations. NAFA’s Safety Advisory Council is presently undertaking a detailed review of the NTSB recommendations which will be provided to NHTSA when completed.

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