The U.S. House’s Appropriations Committee this week passed 30-21 a 2016 DOT funding bill that would, if approved by Congress, keep in place the current hours-of-service suspension until the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) can justify the HOS rule changes put in place in July 2013.
The $55 billion bill would also prevent FMCSA from continuing a rulemaking to raise the current minimum amount of liability insurance required to be held by motor carriers.
An hours-of-service suspension would continue if a bill passed in House committee becomes law.The bill still needs to be passed by the Senate and signed by the president to become law. The Senate has not produced its version of a 2016 DOT appropriations bill.
The currently suspended hours-of-service rules include the requirement that a 34-hour restart include two 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. periods and the once-per-week limit of the restart’s use. They were suspended in December following passage of a 2015 government funding bill.
Under the bill now in consideration in the House, suspension of those hours provisions would stay in place until FMCSA completes a field study required by Congress in the 2014 bill that suspended the rules.
The study must also show that drivers who operate under the 2013-implemented rules “demonstrated statistically significant improvement in all outcomes related to safety, operator fatigue, driver health and longevity and work schedules” when compared to drivers operating under pre-2013 rules.
The current law dictates the restart rollback stay in effect until FMCSA produces its report or until Sept. 30, 2015 — whichever is later. The new bill, however, would make reimplementation contingent solely on FMCSA’s study.
