By Rip Watson
Transport Topics
December 15, 2008

WASHINGTON – Three groups that back raising the federal truck limit to 97,000 pounds formally launched a campaign last week to convince Congress to end a 17-year freeze on vehicle weight.

“If the nation’s lawmakers are looking for a way to spur the economy, the change we are seeking will increase productivity,” said John Runyan, co-chairman of the Coalition for Transportation Productivity, whose members include shippers such as Campbell’s Soup and Nestle.

“This is truly a proposal whose time has come,” Runyan said. “This proposal will result in immediate and substantial reductions in emissions. It will reduce vehicle mile traveled without reducing safety.”

Coalition spokesmen, joined by Rep. Michael Michaud (D-Me.), found reason for optimism at a Dec. 10 news conference here. Congress is set to begin debate early next year on reauthorizing the current $286.4 billion transport spending law, a potential legislative vehicle for raising the current 80,000-pound limit in most states.

Jake Jacoby, executive director of Americans for Safe and Efficient Transportation, said he detected a “thawing” of railroad opposition to heavier trucks.

Railroads in the past have said truck weights shouldn’t be changed because road users aren’t willing to pay more taxes to cover the damage. All three of the groups at the news conference said they were prepared to pay for fuel tax if weights were increased.

“I am very hopeful that truck weights will be included, if not in the highway bill then in some other bill,” said Michaud, a transportation committee member who represents a state where forest products companies that support a weight increase are key employers.

Congressional leadership’s receptivity to such increases remains to be seen.

Transportation committee Chairman James Oberstar (D-Minn.) opposes weight increases. At a hearing earlier this year, Oberstar said he might support pilot programs to test the effect of higher weights on safety.

At the same hearing, Oberstar criticized 14 separate applications for weight limit exemptions from industries such as forest products and told the groups they would have to prove to him that heavier weights wouldn’t further harm America’s defective bridges.

“It remains to be seen what can be accomplished in the next highway bill,” said Michaud, whose home state allows 100,000-pound trucks on state and local roads, but not federal highways. “I am encouraged by the members’ interest in working with an open mind on this issue.”

“We will be increasing productivity benefits in the larger economy, particularly rural communities where agriculture and forest products companies are most active,” said Mike Branch, chairman of the Agricultural Transportation Efficiency Coalition. Members include fleets such as Grammer Industries, which is led by ATA Chairman Charles “Shorty” Whittington.

The speakers at the meeting outlined the benefits of raising truck weights and did not single out railroads for their past opposition to raising vehicle weights.

All speakers also said no freight will be diverted from trains to trucks if limits are increased because railroads don’t want to handle short-distance trips of pulpwood and agricultural products.

Jacoby, whose carrier-shipper group includes fleets such as CRST International, based his “thawing” observation on recent conversations between shippers and top executive from seven major railroads.

“I was told by several [coalition] officials that here were no [railroad] executives who said ‘Not over my dead body’ [to heavier trucks],” Jacoby said. “That was what they used to say.”

Jacoby said he hasn’t seen any sign so far that the Association of American Railroads, the industry trade association, has changed its position on the issue.

“From the railroads’ standpoint, the key issue with size and weight has always been the amount of damage done by trucks to the nation’s highways,” AAR spokesman Tom White told TT. “The larger issue of how to pay for that has to be addressed.”