In The News
'House Freedom Caucus' wants to see more than 200 rules vacated, including ELDs, speed limiters
WASHINGTON — Electronic logging devices and speed limiters are two of some 230-plus rules the House Freedom Caucus wants to see ripped from the federal regulations book in the case of the ELD mandate, and never see the light of day, in terms of speed limiters.
The House Freedom Caucus is a congressional caucus consisting of conservative Republican members of the House of Representatives.
It was formed by a group of Congressmen as a "smaller, more cohesive, more agile and more active" group of conservatives, many of whom support Tea Party ideals.
The final rule on ELDs was issued in December 2015 and goes into effect in December 2017.
The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association had vigorously fought the ELD mandate, but lost a federal court case that sought to have the rule vacated, and then only Friday said its request for a rehearing on the case has been denied.
OOIDA is now working with legal counsel to appeal the rehearing denial to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The House Freedom Causes said the cost of the ELD mandate would be about $1 billion.
On August 26, 2016, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration jointly issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would require fleets and independent contractors to equip heavy-duty vehicles with devices that limit their speeds on U.S. roadways, and requiring those devices be set to a maximum speed, a safety measure they say could save lives and more than $1 billion in fuel costs each year.
The proposal would establish standards requiring all newly manufactured U.S. trucks, buses, and multipurpose passenger vehicles with a gross vehicle weight rating of more than 26,000 pounds to come equipped with speed limiting devices. The proposal discusses the benefits of setting the maximum speed at 60, 65 and 68 miles per hour, but the agencies will consider other speeds based on public input.
The fact that the NPRM didn't not land on a specific speed and did not address speed limit differentials between passenger cars and commercial vehicles caused the American Trucking Associations to say it could not support the NPRM in its published form.
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