The U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT’s) Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), on March 13, announced an additional 90-day temporary waiver from the electronic logging device (ELD) rule for agriculture-related transportation. Because the devices do not accurately account for the agricultural exemptions already in place, compliance by agricultural haulers would be problematic.
The ELD rule for truck drivers went into effect December 2017, but DOT granted the agriculture industry an initial exemption that was set to expire March 18, 2018. During the extension period, FMCSA is taking steps to address the unique needs of the country’s agriculture industries and provided further guidance to assist in the effective implementation of the rule without impeding commerce or safety.
USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue applauded the move in a written statement. “The ELD mandate imposes restrictions upon the agriculture industry that lack flexibility necessary for the unique realities of hauling agriculture commodities. If the agriculture industry had been forced to comply by the March 18 deadline, live agricultural commodities, including plants and animals, would have been at risk of perishing before they reached their destination. The 90-day extension is critical to give DOT additional time to issue guidance on hours-of-service and other ELD exemptions that are troubling for agriculture haulers.”
Perdue went on to explain that current ELD technologies don’t recognize the hours-of-service exemptions for agriculture that are in federal law, leaving drivers to do twice the work by requiring use of both the ELD and traditional paper logs. “This is a classic example of a one-size-fits-all federal regulation that ignores common sense to the detriment of sectors like agriculture,” he said.
FMCSA Administrator Ray Martinez noted, “We continue to see strong compliance rates across the country that improve weekly, but we are mindful of the unique work our agriculture community does and will use the following 90 days to ensure we publish more helpful guidance that all operators will benefit from.”
National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) welcomed the news with President Kevin Kester saying, “This is obviously good news for America’s cattle haulers and producers, and it will provide FMCSA more time to educate our livestock haulers on the ELDs while industry works on solutions to the current hours-of-service rules that simply do not work for those hauling live animals.
NCBA’s executive director of government affairs, Allison Cooke, said this is good news and that FMCSA hopes to provide additional outreach to livestock haulers during the extension period. In addition, more guidance is expected on the 150 air-mile radius exemption. (An “air mile” is basically the distance in a straight line between two points, not necessarily road miles.)
Cooke said the hours of service is the biggest issue of concern, she explained, “The current hours of service, which are 11 hours of drive time, 14 hours on duty and a 10-hour rest, just don’t really work for the live-haul community.” She added, “We have an animal welfare piece that we have to be concerned about at all times and we have weather to deal with, and those animals—we have to be worried about how that weather negatively affects them.”
Cooke said that NCBA’s work on Capitol Hill has garnered support from members of Congress but more needs to be done. The cattlemen’s organization will also continue working with Martinez to get more flexibility on hours of service regulations.
“We’ve been attacking the ELDs and hours of service from any way possible at this point and we will continue to do so,” Cooke said.
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), who earlier in the day on March 13 sent a letter to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao requesting a delay and asking for further clarification, commented, “After I requested action from DOT earlier today, and raised this issue with Senate leadership last fall, it’s encouraging that the administration has taken additional steps to alleviate the concerns our agriculture transporters have with the new ELD rule.” She continued, “Moving forward, DOT must continue to engage with members of the agriculture community, provide concrete guidance for recreational horse enthusiasts, and present workable guidelines to protect perishable food grown in North Dakota to protect our rural economy.”
In the letter to Chao, Heitkamp urged her to immediately address several serious concerns about the new ELD rules. “In North Dakota, ranchers and recreational rodeo enthusiasts alike depend on our nation’s highways to move livestock to market and participate in rodeos across the region,” Heitkamp wrote. “As this rule has been implemented though, I have grown concerned about the lack of input agricultural and rural stakeholder groups have been able to provide during the rulemaking process, which has created considerable uncertainty in the application of the rule to these agricultural and recreational uses.”
Beginning April 1, 2018, full enforcement of the ELD rule begins. Carriers subject to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations that do not have an ELD when required will be placed out of service. The driver will remain out of service for 10 hours in accordance with the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance criteria. At that point, to facilitate compliance, the driver will be allowed to travel to the next scheduled stop and should not be dispatched again without an ELD. If the driver is dispatched again without an ELD, the motor carrier will be subject to further enforcement action.
FMCSA noted in a press release that since December 2017, roadside compliance with the hours-of-service recordkeeping requirements, including the ELD rule, has been steadily increasing, with roadside compliance reaching a high of 96 percent in the most recent available data. There are over 330 separate self-certified devices listed on the registration list available on the DOT website. — WLJ
