GOVERNMENT NEWS
THE LEGISLATIVE AND REGULATORY RUNDOWN By Adrienne Gildea, CAE, Deputy Executive Director, Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance
Congress spent the summer debating many things, including how to incorporate the president’s infrastructure package, the American Jobs Plan, into its vision for infrastructure investment for the nation. There is widespread disagreement between republicans and democrats, and even within the parties themselves, regarding what qualifies as “infrastructure” and a vast array of opinions on how to best spur economic growth while also addressing climate change and other challenges. The Senate eventually reached a compromise and approved a bill in August. However, as this article was being written, congressional leadership and the White House were still trying to find a clear path forward for the proposal in the House of Representatives, which had passed a similar bill of its own earlier this year and was largely excluded from the initial negotiations. The Senate bill, dubbed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, includes a new highway reauthorization. The current authorization expires on Sept. 30. The bill includes an increase in funding for the Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program (MCSAP) and the High Priority and Commercial Driver’s License Program Implementation grants, as well as an extra year for jurisdictions to spend their MCSAP formula funds and additional authority for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to redistribute unspent funds,
rather than allow them to expire. Perhaps most significant for the Alliance, the bill makes much-needed changes to the way training is delivered to roadside inspectors – one of CVSA’s top priorities for this reauthorization cycle. The bill also contains other provisions that impact commercial motor vehicle safety and enforcement, as well as an increase in funding for the Community Safety Grant program, under the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, which provides funds for training state personnel on the safe movement of hazardous materials, including CVSA’s Cooperative Hazardous Materials Enforcement Development (COHMED) regional training. While many of CVSA’s reauthorization priorities were excluded from the final Senate package, a great deal of progress was made and the Alliance has a strong starting point on a number of the issues it champions, first among those being CVSA’s long-standing call for the establishment of a universal electronic vehicle identifier. Bipartisan support for the concept is growing on the Hill and in the motor carrier industry. CVSA’s universal electronic vehicle identifier concept would revolutionize the way the enforcement community identifies vehicles for inspection, greatly expanding enforcement’s footprint by allowing inspectors to interact with more
trucks and better identify motor carriers most in need of intervention. It is also the foundation upon which electronic inspections and credentialing can be built. CVSA will continue to educate members of Congress, regulators and our industry partners on the tremendous safety improvements that will be possible if a universal electronic vehicle identifier requirement is established. This fall, CVSA will evaluate where the Alliance’s legislative priorities stand. If the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passes the House, CVSA will begin the process of developing the next set of reauthorization policy positions. If the bill fails to move forward, CVSA will continue efforts to improve the motor carrier section of that bill as Congress considers how best to move a highway bill forward in the coming months. In addition to the Alliance’s efforts on Capitol Hill, CVSA continues to engage with our regulatory partners within the U.S. Department of Transportation. CVSA is working with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to address data quality, necessary improvements to the various software systems used by jurisdictions, how to best prepare for autonomous trucks in the future, and, most importantly, shared strategies on how to reduce the number of crashes, injuries and fatalities involving large trucks and buses. n
THIRD QUARTER 2021
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