Truck parking. Double brokering. A speed limiter mandate. Three issues of importance and burden, by turns, for owner-operators rose to the forefront at a House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure hearing Wednesday.
Focused broadly on "Overcoming Supply Chain Challenges to Deliver for America," the hearing saw representatives from the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, the Transportation Intermediaries Association, America's truck stops and fuel makers, and the Teamsters sound off on the big issues impacting various trucking constituencies today.
If the recent EPA hearings on the new Phase 3 emissions regulations largely served as a sounding board for environmental groups to urge stricter rules, this hearing was a response from trucking groups, and even House Reps, taking the Biden administration to task.
Highways and Transit subcommittee chair Rick Crawford (R-Arkansas) praised the essential role of truck drivers in the economy and blasted "Soviet-style empty store shelves" and other supply chain failures during the pandemic.
"At a time of sky-high fuel prices while most work remotely," said Crawford, "the administration continues to prioritize their ideology" to "essentially outlaw diesel trucks" while pushing electric trucks that "the market is not ready for." Crawford cited the weight of electric trucks, their cost, their intense mineral needs and how they don't pay into highway use tax schemes as making the pursuit of electric trucking "crazy and unrealistic."
[Related: CARB playing hardball: Board votes to ban diesel sales in California in 2036]
OOIDA Executive VP Lewie Pugh introduced testimony that some have used "Washington’s recent focus" on supply chain struggles "to portray or recast self-serving policies as supply chain improvements."
