More than 21 members of the U.S. House have signed on as co-sponsors to a bill that would delay the compliance date of the looming electronic logging device mandate. The bill, if enacted, would give drivers and carriers two extra years to adopt ELDs by pushing the compliance deadline to December 2019.
However, lawmakers appear reluctant so far to work an ELD delay into the DOT funding bills. A House committee this month approved a bill that included a one-year ELD compliance delay for livestock haulers and issued a corresponding report advising the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to examine whether a delay is needed. The bill doesn’t require FMCSA to perform such a study, though.
According to a source from the Senate Appropriations Committee, the Senate version of the bill includes no language related to ELDs.
The American Trucking Associations is adamant the bill does not have the necessary support in Congress to be enacted, despite the 21 co-sponsors who’ve signed on.
Lawmakers have “on a bipartisan basis for several years insisted that this requirement be enacted and implemented,” says ATA’s Bill Sullivan. “Further, the fact that the committee with jurisdiction over transportation policy has shown no indication it intends to act on a broader delay shows just how little appetite there is in Congress for this. Congress has spoken, FMCSA has spoken and the courts have spoken and it is time to move forward to implement this important rule.”
The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association is engaged in a grassroots effort in recent months to gt Congress to delay or strike down the mandate, particularly for small carriers like owner-operators,. The OOIDA is asking truckers and others opposed to the ELD mandate to call their representatives in Washington and express support for Babin’s bill.
