M. Rick Richards asked the million-dollar question, responding to the news of the draft House bill (H.R. 3413, or the TRUE Safety Act) from Rep. Richard Hanna’s office that would put a moratorium on restart changes until the FMCSA completes the highway-bill-mandated real-world study on economic impacts. “Are they just pandering to us, and they know it won’t get passed?” Richards wrote on Overdrive‘s Facebook page last week Thursday when news of the bill’s creation began making the rounds.
He may well have a point. The standalone bill’s introduction isn’t the first time such a moratorium was attempted by Hanna and others to be put in place pending study results — that July effort to defund enforcement of new rule provisions failed before it really got under way. This one, however, has been introduced and referred to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee by Hanna with two cosponsors from both parties.
For supporters of the effort — you can read more about this bill, including its language, via this story — the time is now to make support known to members of Congress. That’s just what Jason Haggard was doing as news was emerging about the new bill. “I literally just got off the phone with the offices of Hanna and also Michele Bachmann from here in Minnesota,” Haggard wrote on Facebook. Shortly following the July 1 effective date of the new hours provisions, Haggard presented Bachmann’s office with a petition Overdrive reported on here, signed by hundreds of drivers, that asks “for the same thing that this bill is asking for,” Haggard continued. “They wouldn’t respond to it.”
Now, at least, he added, “Hanna’s staff knows that Bachmann has it in her possession, so hopefully they will acquire a copy from her to use in their fight.”
Voices on the July hours changes have been many — for bill supporters, key to convincing lawmakers to sign on to the effort may well be showing the economic impact of the new rule, which several owner-operators responding to this post on the Channel 19 blog several weeks ago did. Below, find a round-up of responses.
And as owner-operator Karen Moore noted in commentary following the Oct. 11-13 Ride for the Constitution effort, ” If every trucker and owner-operator in the country would do nothing more than pick up the phone and call their senator or congressperson once a month, you would see things change.” Moore shared the Capitol Switchboard phone number: (202) 224-3121. “Ask for your congressperson or your senator or any other representative,” she added. “The switchboard will plug you right in with a live person who will listen and make a record of your opinion and pass it on to your representative. It works!”
More Voices on the hours changes
Gordon Alkire: Contact your legislators and tell them how it affects you and give them an alternate idea on how to fix it. I used to work closely with a congressman. If he gets people calling in about a bill, and two are for it and one against it, he votes for it. No congressman is smart enough to know everything about everything. His advisers are not truckers. Call or write them, but contact them and tell them how this affects you and how to make sensible changes.
