Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2018

Floor Speech

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Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to Mr. Babin's amendment, which delays FMCSA's electronic logging device rulemaking.

While well intentioned, this delay will endanger public safety by giving commercial vehicle operators the ability to exceed the Federal hours of service limits.

In 2012, Congress passed the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act, or MAP-21, which instructed the FMCSA to issue a rulemaking requiring the use of ELDs in commercial vehicles. Congress again reaffirmed the ELD requirement in the FAST Act and fiscal year 2016 appropriations. The American Trucking Association was in lockstep with Congress at each instance, and thousands of fleet owners across the country have taken steps to adopt this technology and train their drivers as Congress intended.

After 5 years, FMCSA has completed this rulemaking, and has done so in the proper way: by conferring with industry and Congress and holding public meetings in advance of implementation.

I can appreciate that my friends in agriculture industry--some of my closest friends--I serve on the Agriculture Committee, as well as the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee--would like to see a delay of the ELD rule. Instead of this amendment being a catch-all delay, perhaps my friend could have structured a more precise exemption for those in niche segments of transportation, like agriculture. That is a policy many would have considered supporting, including myself.

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In closing, Mr. Chairman, I ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to oppose this well-intentioned amendment--a policy that secured nearly unanimous support in our conference when it was enacted--and work with an administration that understands smart, consumer safety-minded regulations like this.
We can work with the President, Secretary Chao, and others at FMCSA to address some of the concerns my friend from Texas has without undoing the progress that has been made to ensure our highways are safer with ELDs.

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