Congress to consider new truck agency this fall
By Staff -- Logistics Management, 9/1/1999
Two influential members of Congress have filed legislation in the House and Senate that would create a new agency to oversee motor carriers. Congress is expected to take up the legislation this fall.Before Congress adjourned in August for its annual summer vacation, Rep. Bud Shuster (R-Pa.), who chairs the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, filed legislation that would establish a new National Motor Carrier Administration within the U.S. Department of Transportation. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation committee, introduced a similar bill in the Senate.
Both bills would have a new agency assume the motor carrier safety functions that now are handled by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). At congressional hearings earlier this year, the FHWA's Office of Motor Carriers was criticized for its regulation of truck safety.
Among the bills' supporters is the American Trucking Associations (ATA), which has advocated the creation of such an agency for more than a year. "We believe that a new motor carrier administration--with truck safety as its core mission--will help us to build even more on our safety efforts," says ATA President Walter B. McCormick Jr.
Another reason the ATA has been pushing for a separate trucking administration within DOT is that it wants motor carriers to receive the same level of attention received by other modes of transportation, many of which have their own agencies. "In Washington, where clout counts, we would be on an equal footing with public transportation, airlines, and railroads," says ATA spokesman Mike Russell.
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