States take steps to impede ELD enforcement

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Legislators in South Dakota, Missouri, Tennessee and Idaho have introduced resolutions in attempts to throw roadblocks in front of enforcement of the electronic logging device mandate.

Efforts are in the works to suspend funds for enforcement within their state’s borders or by asking the federal government to reconsider the mandate. The bills primarily focus on:

  • concerns of small business truckers as the reasons to repeal the mandate or suspend its enforcement
  • the potential for the mandate to drive up prices of goods for consumers

Lawmakers in South Dakota and Missouri call for the outright repeal of the mandate.

The South Dakota House and Senate passed a resolution “encouraging Congress and [FMCSA] to overturn the rules regarding” ELDs. The state cites the cost of compliance, ELDs’ tracking requirements (which the state says is “n invasion of privacy) and FMCSA’s self-certified device registry as reasons to repeal the mandate.

Missouri’s General Assembly has issued two ELD-related bills this year. One asks Congress to repeal the ELD mandate, calling it “an imposition of corporate welfare that …[benefits] politically powerful large corporations at the expense of small business.”

The state’s other ELD bill forbids state personnel from enforcing the mandate and forbids them from keeping records — or transmitting any records to FMCSA — of truckers who aren’t compliant with the mandate.

The Tennessee Senate introduced a bill that prohibits state funds from being used to enforce the mandate.

Both chambers of the Idaho legislature have introduced a joint resolution that would permanently exempt ag and livestock carriers domiciled in the state from complying with the mandate.