House panel debates ELD certification, truck weight limits

WASHINGTON — Stakeholders in the trucking industry are jockeying for position on Capitol Hill as lawmakers begin prioritizing provisions to include in the next version of highway funding legislation.

A slate of issues were raised at a hearing Wednesday of a House Transportation subcommittee, including truck parking, freight fraud, driver pay and “fly-by-night” CDL schools, but increasing truck size and weights and evaluating the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s oversight of electronic logging devices for regulating driver hours of service stood out.

“[The ELD mandate] was one of the most expensive mandates imposed on trucking,” Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association Executive Vice President Lewie Pugh told the committee.

“When they made the ELD mandate, FMCSA allowed for self-certification but later found out that some devices didn’t meet certification and FMCSA had to get rid of them. So a trucker who invested thousands of dollars on these devices has to buy another. I have members that have had to buy three or four replacements.

“It’s time that FMCSA themselves start inspecting and certifying these things to make sure they do what they’re supposed to do.”

U.S. Rep. Brian Babin, R-Texas, went further, calling for a temporary pause in ELD tracking functions until security risks are ironed out. “The components for these devices are often made in adversarial countries,” Babin said.

“What’s more, these ELDs are hard-wired into the truck itself. They can shut it down, start it up and even make it veer off course. Taken together, that paints a pretty grim picture of the level of trust that we have for these devices. As we saw in New Orleans on New Year’s Eve, any vehicle can become a mass casualty weapon,” he said, referring to a driver of a pickup truck who sped along Bourbon Street and killed 14 people.

Truck size and weight battle lines

A proposal to raise gross vehicle weight (GVW) limits on federal highways and interstates was the most divisive for witnesses at the hearing. Ryan Lindsey, testifying on behalf of the Shippers Coalition, and Dan Glessing, a fifth-generation Minnesota dairy farmer, pushed hard for a pilot project that would raise the GVW limit on interstates from 80,000 to 91,000 pounds.

“We’re not talking about bigger trucks. We’re not talking about longer trucks,” said Lindsey. “We’re simply talking about raising the GVW by 11,000 pounds and adding a sixth axle” to balance the weight distribution. “That’s the regulatory hurdle we have that would make us more efficient and eliminate 20% of our trips.”

Testifying on behalf of the Truckload Carriers Association, John Elliott, executive chairman of truckload operator Load One, acknowledged that the industry was divided.

“The LTL is a small segment that endorses larger trucks, while other segments endorse heavier trucks. As an industry, truckload is by far the largest segment, and we adamantly oppose both,” Elliott said. “It comes down to safety, and bigger, heavier, longer does not represent safer in any way.”

Cole Scandaglia, policy adviser for the Teamsters union, cited a federal study that found heavier trucks had higher crash rates, as well as higher HOS and brake violations.

“So we think there is data that demonstrates there’s a real safety problem, but the most important message is from the perspective of our drivers, and they tell us they don’t want to be put behind the wheel of those vehicles.”

Cards on the table

With the current $1.2 trillion infrastructure funding legislation due to expire in fiscal year 2026, each of the truck panel witnesses was asked to name the “one thing” needed in the new reauthorization bill. Their responses:

Elliott: “Truck parking and drug testing.”

Pugh: “Truck parking and driver training.”

Lindsey: “Predictable, dependable funding certainty.”

Glessing: “Adequate funding.”

Scandaglia: “Driver training and the Highway Trust Fund.”