William B. Cassidy | Sep 30, 2011 6:36AM EDT
The battle over proposed changes to truck driver hours of service escalated on Capitol Hill this week as a group of shipping executives called on key members of Congress to oppose shortening the time truckers may drive each day.
Nearly 20 executives from businesses that rely on trucking services visited House and Senate Republicans and Democrats Sept. 27 and 28 to argue against changes to the work hour rules they said could raise their costs as much as 10 percent.
The shippers, members of NASSTRAC, visited Capitol Hill shortly after Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica, R-Fla., and his subcommittee chairs asked President Obama to drop the proposed changes.
The FMCSA is scheduled to release its final hours of service rule in October.
The shippers visited the offices of Reps. Tim Walz, D-Minn., Tom Petri, R-Wis., John Duncan Jr., R-Tenn., the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit.
In the Senate, the executives called on Richard Durbin, D-Ill., John Rockefeller, D-W. Va., Max Baucus, D-Mont., Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Alexander Lamar, R-Tenn., all members of key transportation committees.
The shipper group also urged Congress to raise truck size and weight limits and invest more in U.S. highways and bridges.
Contact William B. Cassidy at wcassidy@joc.com. Follow him on Twitter at @wbcassidy_joc