Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users

TRANSPORTATION EQUITY ACT: A LEGACY FOR USERS -- (House of Representatives - March 09, 2005)

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Mr. BOOZMAN. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.

The text of the amendment is as follows:

Amendment No. 1 offered by Mr. Boozman:

After section 4134, insert the following (and redesignate, and conform the table of contents, of the bill accordingly):

SEC. 4132. BREAKS DURING DAILY TOUR OF DUTY.

Section 31502 of title 49, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:

``(f) Breaks During Daily Tour of Duty.--Notwithstanding any other provision of law, an operator of a property carrying commercial motor vehicle shall be permitted to operate such vehicle and perform other workrelated activities at the end of the 14th hour from the time the driver begins duty, for a period of time for which the driver has been off duty during the 14-hour period, not to exceed a total of 16 hours.

``(g) No Coercion.--No person shall require or coerce a motor carrier or its employees to record falsely their duty status as off-duty for any activity defined by the Secretary as on-duty. ''.

The Acting CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to House Resolution 140, the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Boozman) and a Member opposed each will control 5 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Boozman).

Mr. BOOZMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
First, Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the Chairman of the Committee on Rules, the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), for making my amendment in order.

I would also like to express my pride as a member of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and I greatly appreciate the leadership of Chairman Young and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar). Mr. Chairman, I think the American public wants more than anything to see us working together, and I truly do appreciate the example this committee has demonstrated in that regard.

The other thing I would like to do is thank the staff. I am in the process of an amendment that would give the truckers an additional 2 hours of break time. I think I almost need to do an amendment that would give the staff a couple of hours of break time for the last 2 weeks. So we really do appreciate them.

Mr. Chairman, I represent the Third District of Arkansas and probably have more trucking companies and truck drivers in that district than any other part of America. In visiting with my trucking companies and visiting with the drivers, they have indicated under the current hours of service rule there were times they felt it would be beneficial if they could go off the clock and occasionally take a break.

Today, when I arrived at work, and I have as tough a schedule as anybody anyplace today, yet I have the ability, if I want to go and visit with somebody and take 30 minutes, drink a cup of coffee, take a nap, do things like that, I have the ability to do that and make it up later. Our truckers do not have that ability.

The Federal Motor Carriers have had over 300 complaints lodged in that regard. So what we are trying to do is provide an amendment that gives the truckers the ability to take up to 2 hours of off-duty time during the day. The rest times are optional, voluntary. The driver does not have to take the rest time unless he wants to. In fact, I have included specific language in the amendment which protects the drivers and preserves the time for them. It is apparent that the industry at this point has become very complex. It is difficult. One size does not fit all, and that is really what we are trying to alleviate.

Last year, I offered an amendment to basically say, let us go back to the old hours of service rule because of the difficulties we were having. During the markup last year, I spoke with Chairman Young and Ranking Member Oberstar, and in the course of that discussion I brought up the fact that the drivers, again, do not have the flexibility, they do not have the ability to take a break when they want to once the clock starts.

Ranking Member Oberstar, in the course of the discussion, understood that that was a problem. So what I did was to try to craft a rule that would come back to address that problem. I understand, though, that there are concerns that still exist with the amendment. So I visited with the ranking member's staff. I visited with Annette Sandberg, the administrator of the Federal Motor Carriers, trying again to further refine this thing so we can answer all of the problems that have come about.

I want to compliment Ms. Sandberg. She is in a very difficult situation. She and her staff are working very hard to get this resolved. Hopefully, we will be able to do that in the near future.

One thing I have been disappointed in, an effort to give drivers the ability to go off the clock when they feel like they need to, heavy traffic, for whatever reason. And something that has come about is I have been targeted, Wal-Mart is being targeted. I happen to represent them, and am very proud in doing that, and yet the reality is over 40 organizations are supporting this amendment, most of them key-voting this amendment. And the reality is also hundreds of thousands of truckers are also in support. I think the amendment is very worthwhile.

Again, I would like to work with the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar), work with the Federal motor carriers, the drivers, all of the parties involved in the industry, so we can get in a situation where we can rectify it and give the truckers the flexibility that they greatly need.

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