OOIDA Executive Vice President Lewie Pugh plans to provide lawmakers ways they can improve the truck driving profession during a House Highways and Transit Subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, May 10.
Pugh is scheduled to testify at the hearing titled “Freight Forward: Overcoming Supply Chain Challenges to Deliver for America,” along with representatives from the Transportation Intermediaries Association, Natso and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
The hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday. You can watch a live broadcast of the hearing by clicking here.
According to a news release from the subcommittee, the goal of the hearing is to identify potential legislative solutions to ongoing supply chain challenges throughout the transportation sector.
Pugh is expected to tout bills for truck parking, restroom access and overtime pay while speaking out against proposed regulations for speed limiters, side underride guards and strict emission standards.
“It is clear to OOIDA the supply chain will never function optimally when our members struggle to find safe parking, are detained at loading facilities for hours on end, aren’t being fully paid for the time they work, face a flood of new and costly regulations and can’t even access restrooms when picking up or dropping off critical freight,” Pugh wrote in his advance submitted testimony. “If you want to improve supply chain functionality through legislation, you must find the political courage to address these pervasive problems.”
OOIDA helped craft the Truck Parking Safety Improvement Act, which would provide $755 million for truck parking over three years.
Identical versions of the bill have been introduced in the House and Senate, and both have been gaining momentum.
Last congressional session, OOIDA also worked with lawmakers to introduce the Truckers Bathroom Access Act and the Guaranteeing Overtime for Truckers Act. The first bill would require shippers and receivers with restrooms to make them accessible for truckers while loading or unloading. The second bill would remove the overtime wages exemption for truckers. Both measures are expected to be reintroduced soon.
Full witness list:
- Lewie Pugh, OOIDA executive vice president
- Anne Reinke, president of Transportation Intermediaries Association
- David Fialkov, executive vice president of Natso
- Cole Scandaglia, senior legislative representative for Teamsters
Some of Reinke’s testimony is expected to oppose efforts to increase broker transparency.
OOIDA petitioned FMCSA in 2020 to begin enforcing existing broker regulations and to create more transparency in regard to broker transactions.
FMCSA announced in March that it was granting OOIDA’s petition and would soon be publishing a rulemaking regarding broker transparency. At the same time, FMCSA informed the Transportation Intermediaries Association that it was denying its petition to eliminate an existing regulation that requires brokers to make transaction records available to all applicable parties.
OOIDA’s petition asked the agency to require brokers to automatically provide an electronic copy of each transaction record within 48 hours and to explicitly prohibit brokers from including any provision that requires a carrier to waive their transparency rights.
According to the advance written testimony from Reinke, TIA plans to continue to fight efforts that would increase the transparency of broker transactions.
“FMCSA has indicated that it will initiate a rulemaking that could force the release of the private commercial contract information to parties not privy to the contract,” Reinke wrote. “We believe FMCSA does not have the legal authority to ‘pierce’ contracts between a broker and a shipper, for many reasons, not least of which is that such an act would potentially expose proprietary information of shippers, fundamentally alter and constrain the shipping market and result in serious significant costs for all parties with little benefit.” LL
Credit: Source link
