A provision that would create a new $100 annual fee on motor carriers was left out of the Senate Commerce Committee’s budget reconciliation proposal.
It’s an omission that the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association lauded. The organization, which represents small-business truckers, opposed the House Transportation and Infrastructure’s version of the budget proposal over the “unnecessary” fee.
“The good news is that the Senate Commerce Committee did not include this provision in their version of the reconciliation package,” Bryce Mongeon, OOIDA’s director of legislative affairs, told Land Line Now. “The House included it and passed it, but the Senate has not left it in there. We’ll see where this goes.”
On April 30, the House T&I Committee advanced its budget reconciliation proposal by a party-line vote of 36-30. The proposal included several provisions, such as new fees on electric vehicles, that OOIDA supports. However, the House version also included a provision that would create a new public website to display a motor carrier’s fitness to operate in interstate commerce. Basically, the website would provide liability protection for brokers. However, motor carriers would be charged $100 annually to find out if they received a red light or green light.
OOIDA argued that the information is already publicly available and that the motor carriers shouldn’t have to pay for brokers’ liability protection.
“Our members already pay numerous federal taxes and fees, and as part of this reconciliation proves, we believe Congress should be eliminating unnecessary taxes, not creating new ones,” OOIDA wrote in a letter signed by President Todd Spencer.
On May 22, the House budget proposal passed by a vote of 215-214 and advanced to the Senate.
However, it does not look like the Senate plans to include the problematic provision for truckers in the broad tax reform bill.
“This (motor carrier fee) is not something that is getting the major national headlines, but it is something that we’re tracking closely,” Mongeon said. “They still have a lot of negotiation to do to see what the final product will look like, but from our perspective, it is very good that this provision is not in their version of the bill.” LL
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