Will 1998 be the year of the monster truck debate?
While Congress dodged the issue of bigger trucks in 1997, it will be hard to avoid a discussion of truck size and weight laws in 1998. The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act is up for reauthorization and highway bills are traditionally a legislative vehicle for bigger trucks.
The anticipated debate over truck capacity didn’t take place this year for several reasons. Congress did not even come close to completing work on an ISTEA reauthorization bill before adjourning.
The American Trucking Associations did not lobby Congress for widespread changes in size and weight policy, choosing instead to negotiate fruitlessly with the Association of American Railroads for an expanded national triple-trailer network and for giving states the flexibility to set their own rates.
Those talks fell apart in April, upsetting the fragile balance ATA President Thomas Donohue had developed between competing segments of the industry. Before ATA could decide how to proceed, Donohue accepted a job as head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. That was quickly followed by two negative articles in Parade magazine and a proposal by Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to ban triples.
When Congress reconvenes, several new players in the debate will be in place. ATA’s new president, Walter McCormick, is a soft-spoken but street-smart lawyer-lobbyist with ties to both railroads and the trucking industry. A former Senate staffer, McCormick lobbied the Senate against Reid’s proposal last fall. He received $20,000 in consulting fees from ATA in the first half of 1997, according to the most recent federal disclosure forms. At the same time he was on ATA’s payroll, McCormick was lobbying Congress in support of the proposed sale of Conrail to CSX Corp. and Norfolk Southern. CSX paid McCormick $70,000 in lobbying fees in the first half of 1997.
One of McCormick’s first tasks will be to protect his industry from a triple ban or other reductions in capacity while seeking opportunities for increased capacity within ISTEA. While the trucking industry was united in opposing Reid’s proposed triple ban, it is fragmented on what changes, if any, ATA should seek next year.
“Our position remains the same,” ATA Senior Vice President John Collins said recently. “We are not seeking any wholesale expansion of size and weights, and we are unilaterally opposed to any rollbacks or reductions in size and weights.”
The Missouri and Arkansas trucking associations oppose bigger trucks because of the huge capital expense of buying new power units and trailers. Large less-than-truckload carriers want more triple routes such as those discussed with railroads early this year. (LTL shipments do not require a full truckload.)
LTL carriers in October formed their own association representing it on legislative issues.
The creation of a separate lobbying association for unionized LTL carriers opens the way for ATA to cede to the demands of truckload carriers to support an increase in truck weights.
Truckload carriers such as Schneider National and CRST want to operate 97,000-pound trucks, a proposal that has support from industrial shippers and operators of private truck fleets.
“We are not part of efforts to increase weights to 97,000 pounds,” Collins said.
Heavier trucks are anathema to railroads. The AAR is well-positioned to fight any trucking industry proposals for increased capacity that may emerge in 1998. The association has a new leader, M.B. Oglesby, whose background as a Republican congressional staffer and tobacco industry lobbyist gives him close ties to lawmakers and experience in working on controversial issues. It has restructured its public relations staff, promoting aggressive spokesman John Fitzpatrick to senior assistant vice president.
AAR also has hired anti-truck consultant Lee Lane. Lane was AAR’s in-house expert on truck sizes and weights for many years before forming his own consulting company, whose only client was AAR. While Lane is best known as AAR’s link to truck safety groups, AAR says his return is not a preparation for battle but rather to fill a need for additional in-house policy experts. The association is concerned about the pending reauthorization of railroad safety and economic laws, both scheduled to expire in 1998.
Railroads fear that service problems on Western railroads could spur Congress to impose additional economic regulation of their industry. They are confident they can fend off regulation if they can improve their service but are worried that the trucking industry may side with shippers.
ATA earlier this year tried to slow the proposed Conrail sale and threatened at one point to join shippers in seeking additional economic regulation of railroads. Separately, the California Trucking Association is publicizing railroad safety problems in retaliation for the rail’s opposition to proposed triple-trailer routes in Southern California.
Against this backdrop, the Senate was scheduled to resume its ISTEA debate late last month.
Reid still plans to offer some sort of truck capacity legislation but has backed down from his original proposal to ban triples after a concerted, ATA-orchestrated lobbying effort that included letters from Nevada shippers and the National Industrial Transportation League. Reid’s current proposal would instruct the Department of Transportation to develop uniform national operating standards for triples and other longer-combination vehicles based on data to be compiled by the Transportation Research Board.
The railroad industry-funded Coalition Against Bigger Trucks opposes any increases in truck weights, said spokeswoman Cindy Schwartz. The caolition has hired additional staff in anticipation of a trucking industry push for bigger trucks.
One influential player has yet to weigh in on the debate. The Department of Transportation is remaining neutral on proposed changes in federal truck capacity policy until it releases its overdue study on truck size and weight, scheduled for last April. The study has been delayed because of complications in evaluating the economic impact of changes in truck capacity on railroads.
“I’m not prepared to step into that now,” Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater said of the proposed triple ban. “We want to have our position based on reason and reflection.”
