Obama Opens Up Border to Mexican Trucks
Last week, the Obama Administration signaled that it will open up the border to Mexican trucks. There have been countless articles on this, here is one from the Dallas Morning News.
This has been going on for so long, I can’t remember the entire history of the dispute. I will try to recap. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), passed I think back in the early 1990′s, said Mexican trucks would be given free run of the United States. Currently, Canadian truckers can deliver and backhaul in and out of the U.S. Mexicans cannot; they must stay within a 25 mile commercial zone of the border. Unless they are going right to Canada, then they can go through the U.S. I think I’m right on that.
The U.S. never has lived up to the NAFTA agreement. There have been pilot projects, concerns about how safe the Mexican trucks are, etc. In 2009, the Congress withdrew the funding for DOT’s pilot project which would allow the Mexican trucks unlimited access to the U.S. President Obama is now reversing that. Who is for it, and who is against it? Well, the Chamber of Commerce is all for it. That is, the large American shippers, as they believe they will be able to ship cheaper due to the increased competition from the Mexicans. Also, many American manufacturers and farmers are for it, not because they want to ship on Mexican trucks, but because their products have been targeted by Mexico with retaliatory tariffs. They hope these tariffs will now be lifted. The American Trucking Association, which mostly represents the mega-carriers, also supports it, although I’m not sure why. Maybe they think it will give them access to Mexican drivers, who will be cheaper than American drivers.
The Teamsters are against it. They believe allowing Mexican trucks and drivers unlimited access to the U.S. will lead to Mexicans taking American jobs. Also, the Owner Operator Independent Driver Association (OOIDA) is against it, largely for the same reasons the Teamsters are. Both groups also, express concerns about the safety of the Mexicans trucks. So, what will happen? Will the Mexicans get to run their trucks all over the U.S.? Well, this has been going on for nearly 20 years, it hasn’t happened yet, so I wouldn’t expect it will happen tomorrow…. if ever.
EPA Delays Tougher Boiler Regulations
This was in yesterday’s (December 9) New York Times. The Obama Administration has delayed regulations which were scheduled to go into effect in January, 2011, which cut industrial emissions from industrial boilers. The EPA has declared it needs until July 2011 to analyze scientific studies of the new rules, and possibly longer.
What does this have to do with anything? Well, while you all don’t have industrial boilers in your trucks, it does give some insight as to what’s going on in the White House right now. President Obama, heretofore an avowed statist, is putting some brakes on his statist agenda. Apparently, he wants what all first term President want: a second term. And he knows if unemployment is still at 10% come November 2012, he’s history. This is why he’s so eager to extend the current tax rates. Tax hikes will kill whatever recovery is happening. Further job-killing regulations will also hurt the recovery.
The DOT’s new hours of service rules are sitting at the White House right now, undergoing final review and approval. Everyone expects they will cut the number of hours drivers can work. They will cost jobs. They should have been released months ago. Yet they are still in the White House. It’s possible, just possible, the politicians are re-writing them as we speak, so they are not so restrictive and onerous. After all, if the President loses in 2012, he, and all his staff in the White House are on the street. The unelected bureaucrats at DOT will still have jobs. We’ll see, but there’s a small chance the new hours of service rules may not be as bad as expected.
Backup Camera May Become Mandatory
This was in the Los Angeles Times on Saturday December 4. Apparently, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued a proposed rulemaking Friday which will mandate backup cameras on all new cars by 2014.
Oh my. Where does it end? You read about the out-of-control EPA, and how the GOP is going to stand up to Lisa Jackson and her governing-by-fiat EPA, but the EPA is just the tip of the iceberg. What about Ray LaHood and the DOT? Is anyone going to stand up to him? According to the article, NHTSA estimates there are 292 fatalities from backing accidents every year. This rule supposedly will reduce the number of these fatalities. Nowhere in the article, however, does it quote any sort of data or study proving these backup cameras will prevent these type of accidents. If you are in such a big hurry, that you backup without looking, what makes one think you’d look at a backup camera?
My car has a backup camera. I do not find it useful. I use my mirrors, and look where I am going when I back up. I have never had a backing accident. I don’t need the backup camera, but it came standard with the car. According to the article, these cameras add $400 to the cost of the car. I suspect it may be more. I don’t want or need this camera; why should I have to pay for it?
I have no illusions. I am certain this will become a rule. No one has restrained these executive agencies since… well, as long as I can remember, which would be 1990. Democrat, Republican Presidents…. all sides of the same coin. The executive agencies like DOT, EPA, OSHA, etc. simply make rules, rules, on top of rules, and no one stops them. No one in the White House stops them. No one in the Congress stops them. The courts don’t stop them. The President and the Congressmen don’t run the country. The unelected bureaucrats do.
In a few days, FMCSA (which is a part of DOT), will announce the new hours of service rules. They will be more restrictive. Drivers will not be able to drive as many hours. Carriers will be less productive. They will have to hire more drivers to move the same amount of freight. Existing drivers will not be able to work as many hours, and will probably make less money. These new rules will not save one life. There is no data to suggest otherwise. In fact, the DOT has spent the last 7 years arguing the existing rules are safer and save lives. Now they will argue the opposite, just to keep up the facade this is all about safety. It’s the same deal with mandating the electronic on-board recorders. Again, no link to safety, but argue that anyway, just so this government takeover of our lives and businesses feels warm and snuggly.
Somewhere in the last 50 years, we became way too comfortable with the government telling us what to do. Where does it say the government has the right to tell me what kind of safety equipment I have to buy? Where does it say the government can force a business to utilize a GPS-based tracking system on its vehicles? Yeah, I know, the statists all whip out their copies of the Constitution and say, see, says here in Article I, Section 8, the Congress has the power to regulate commerce. It doesn’t matter if the other 4 pages of the Constitution contradict that commerce clause, all they see is “Congress has the power to regulate”, which they interpret to mean, “Congress has the power to regulate without restriction. That’s not what it was intended to mean, and if we keep letting the unelected bureaucrats steal our freedoms, we will all be poorer for it.
ATA is ‘Alarmed’ About the Pending Hours of Service Changes
This comes to us from TruckingInfo.com. It is an article dated today, December 2, 2010. The jist of it is that the American Trucking Association is ‘alarmed’ at the changes about to be made to the hours of service rules.
Without recapping the entire saga of the hours rules, in the not-too-distant past, FMCSA surrendered to the Teamsters and the safety advocacy groups, agreeing to redo their hours of service rules, which have been in place since 2003. The only question remaining is… how much more restrictive will they be? ATA anticipates they will make it a 10 hour driving rule instead of 11, an extension of the 34 hour reset (maybe now 48 hours?), or an elimination of the reset, and God knows what else. The new rule is finished, the White House is reviewing it, and it will be released any day now.
ATA has established a new website to present their position that the existing rules should remain in place. http://www.safedriverhours.com/index.html. It looks like the new website isn’t quite finished, as there seems to be a good deal of gobbledegook on the site. Anyway, in this case, I wish ATA luck, as the existing rules should stay in place. They won’t, but they should.
Another Thought About the Potential EOBR Law
Something else about this Commercial Driver Compliance Improvement Act which is sitting in the Senate. I don’t know there’s any statistics showing these EOBRs reduce crashes. I’m almost sure of it, just because I don’t see the word “safety” in the name of the law. Oh, I suppose the EOBR manufacturers can produce statisitics, but then again, I bet you could find statistics to argue just the opposite. My gut tells me the EOBRs will do exactly nothing to reduce crashes. As I mentioned previously, I have two customers who have installed the EOBRs. They have not seen a reduction in crashes. They have seen an increase in moving violations though. I suppose drivers are rushing more than ever in order to get everything done in 14 hours.
It seems similar to the cameras at redlights. The politicians tell us these cameras are for safety, when everyone knows they are for revenue. The statisitcs show, if anything, there are MORE crashes at the red light camera intersections, as drivers slam on the brakes, run into each other, speed up to beat the light, and other un-natural driving, just to avoid the camera. Or, the story I posted about states who have no-texting laws, who are seeing more accidents, as drivers now hide their phones while texting, instead of holding them up so they can see where they’re going. There are limits to how much you can regulate human behavior. Well, I guess we’ll see what happens; the EOBR debate is just beginning.
Question About EOBRs
I recently received a question from a good customer. He came across information about the Commerical Driver Compliance Improvement Act, which is a Senate bill, S. 3884. It was introduced by Senators Mark Pryor (D-Ark) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn). If made law, it will require all commercial motor vehicles to have electronic on-board recorders.
So what do we know about this bill? Well, reaching back into my high school civics knowledge, all bills not made law by the end of a 2 year Congress die. This Congress ends in less than a month, thank God. So, this bill would have to pass the Senate before the end of next month. Not likely, seeing as they are trying to pass some kind of regulatory overkill law about food safety, give illegals free college, and maybe extend the current tax rates. Then a matching bill must be passed by the House. I don’t think there is any matching legislation pending in the House, and it is very unlikely there will be any before the end of the Congress. So, it’s very unlikely it will happen in this session of Congress.
What about in future Congresses? Maybe. It would have to pass the Republican House, where I would like to think this kind of job-killing legislation would be DOA, but you never know. I note that Lamar Alexander, one of the co-sponsors in the Senate is a “Republican”. I put that in parenthesis, because as anyone who follows politics knows, Alexander is a RINO, that is, Republican In Name Only. So, if a bunch of RINOs in the House, join the Democratic minority, it could happen.
What makes it more likely to happen is, a number of mega-carriers, like US Xpress (from Tennessee, hence Alexander’s involvement), JB Hunt, Schneider, Maverick, and Knight are pushing this. They are doing so, of course, because they have all installed the EOBRs, and they want to force everyone else to do the same. I do not believe ATA has come out in support of this mandate yet, but that is only a matter of time.
My comment to the smaller carriers is, unless you want to be forced to pony up for EOBRs, you’d better pay attention, and make sure you let your Senators and Representatives know how you feel. The big carriers want to force you to have them, and they have the politicians on speed-dial. You’d better involve yourselves, or write a check for equipment you don’t want. Don’t think the mega-carriers already have this won. Despite the huge size of these mega-carriers, the smaller carriers vastly outnumber the mega-carriers.
In the News
So, what’s been happening lately? Well, CSA 2010 is almost here, you probably knew that. Next month, FMCSA will supposedly turn on their website, so everyone can see everyone else’s CSA 2010 scores. We’ll see. The White House is still reviewing FMCSA’s proposal for changing the hours of service rules. Any day now, any day. Like I said before, I guess it will be 10 hours driving, 14 hour rule stays the same, and the 70 hour rule goes to a 48 hour reset.
The GOP, aided by the Tea Party took the House of Representatives, and gained a few Senate seats in the election. That may slow down the tide of regulations coming out of FMCSA; maybe not. There is a bill in the Senate called the Commercial Driver Compliance Improvement Act, which will require all trucks in the U.S. to install EOBRs on them after 3 years. This bill has the backing of JB Hunt, Knight Transportation, Maverick USA, Schneider, and US Xpress. I imagine, it probably as the backing of ATA as a whole. Maybe not…. some ATA members may be against EOBRs. Anyway, speaking as a Tea Party member in good standing, I hope this is Dead-On-Arrival in the House. It probably is. After all, we didn’t put them in there to expand government even further, we put them in there to do the opposite.
Advocacy Groups Want an 8 hour rule
In the ongoing war over the number of hours truck drivers can legally drive, the “safety advocacy” groups have filed their idea of what the rules should be. This article comes from the June 28 written issue of Transport Topics (which is written by the American Trucking Association). If you want to read the whole article, seek out the written June 28 Transport Topics.
Public Citizen, which apparently includes the Teamsters, wants to limit driving to 8 hours a day, no more than a 12 hour on-duty day, and then a mandatory 12 hour off-duty period in between on-duty shifts. Hey, why stop there? Let’s not let them driver at all. That will stop the accidents.
ATA criticized the proposal, stating it’s just a bargaining position, throwing out a ridiculous starting point, and then hoping for a compromise. They also stated an 8 hour rule will create MORE accidents and deaths, as in order to move the same amount of freight, the trucking companies will have to use more and more trucks, which will lead to more congestion and accidents.
I agree 100% with ATA on that one. I would think exposure causes more accidents than anything else. Why do most accidents happen with 15 miles of your home? Because that’s where you do most of your driving, of course. If we have to put on 50% more trucks, to move the same amount of freight, that’s going to jam the already crowded highways even more, and cause even more traffic jams and crashes.
The current rules, which have been in place for about 4-5 years, have been successful. There has not been a surge in truck deaths. In fact, crashes have declined. The “safety” groups tell me that’s because of the poor economy, and reduced truck miles. You want to see a poor economy? Put this idiocy in place.
I-80 Tolling Scheme Rejected!
Every now and then, something happens to slightly restore your faith in govenment. Yesterday, April 6, 2010, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) rejected Fast Eddie Rendell’s scheme to toll I-80 across Pennsylvania. The main reason was that Rendell was not going to use all the money (or probably even most of the money) to maintain I-80, he was instead going to funnel the taxes to mass transit in the cities, or God knows what else.
Here is an article from our local leftist paper, the Reading Eagle. It laments the loss of millions which the local bus authority would have gotten from the tolls. Actually, I’m not sure how you can “lose” something you never had to begin with, but there you go. Now, Rendell will have to go back to the Legislature for his tax increases. If he wants to raise my taxes so there can be cheap bus service in Philadelphia, then let him and the rest of the slimy Legislature vote for it in broad daylight, instead of trying to get the FHWA bureaucrats to approve it. Yea FHWA! (Never thought I’d say that).
Pennsylvania Farmers Facing Tougher DOT Rules
There is a growing brou-ha-ha here is Pennsylvania regarding the farmers, and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations. The Federal DOT issues their truck safety regulations, found in 49 CFR 300 – 399. They apply to vehicles and drivers operating in interstate commerce, which are basically movements across state lines.
If a vehicle or driver stays wholly within one state, Pennsylvania in this instance, then they are subject to the state of Pennsylvania’s truck safety regulations. Each state has slightly different regulations. Some states adopt the Federal regulations exactly. Others have minor differences. Still others have more significant differences. This is why my DVD training package focuses on the Federal rules only. As I point out on the DVD, I don’t know what all 50 state regulations are. However, states are not supposed to have more stringent requirements than the Federal requirements, although they can be more lenient.
The Federal DOT monitors these state variances, and if they find they vary too much from their regulations they will punish the states, by withholding highway funding dollars. Nearly all the states, who have spent themselves into the poorhouse, quickly abandon any states-rights principles when Federal money is at stake. This is the same way the Federal government forced all the States to adopt the 0.08 blood alcohol level for drunk driving.
Apparently, the issue in Pennsylvania presently is the State of Pennsylvania has broadly exempted farmers from large segments of the Federal safety regulations. The Feds have found fault with this, and are threatening Pennsylvania with removal of highway funding. Pennsylvania is deciding whether or not to apply the safety regulations to vehicles and drivers operating on the road at 17,001 lbs. gross vehicle weight rating or more.
Farmers are screaming bloody murder. The State of Pennsylvania is trying to cut a deal with the Federal DOT to make everyone happy. A decision is supposed to be made in the next month. I guess I find it somewhat humorous. For one thing, the DOT regulations apply at 10,001 lbs. in interstate commerce, instead of the more lenient 17,001 lbs. in Pennsylvania, so right there, it could be worse. Also, other industries do not get nearly as many special breaks as farmers. I have no doubt there all sorts of special goodies, breaks and exemptions in the rules, depending on where you are, but I think the farmers get the most.
I think the farmers are somewhat right. If all they are doing is crossing the road to get to the other part of their property with equipment, it’s overkill to make them subject to all the rules. However, if they’re taking their 80,000 truck 15 miles down the road to the processing plant, then they should be subject to the rules, just like the construction dump truck, or landscaper truck, or carnival ride truck.
Actually, if I were made King, I would make all the rules apply at 26,001 lbs. (the CDL standard), and not below. Last I checked, there is no imminent danger of me being made King………
