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News & Analysis | REG•WATCH Blog | Press Room
Monday, October 04, 2004
So much for hours-of-service win...
Remember the public interest victory in the hours-of-service case? A Department of Transportation agency proposed new rules governing the maximum number of hours in a stretch that trucking companies can force their workers to drive without rest or days off -- but the rule change would have permitted trucking companies to game the system and force their workers to drive much longer than even the old rules. Public Citizen won a court victory we described here.
Instead of complying with the court decision and issuing new rules that serve the public interest rather than the interests of trucking corporations, the government ran to Congress and managed to sneak in a clause to a must-pass appropriations bill that now essentially stays the mandate of the court and allows the inadequate hours-of-service rules to stay in effect (!!) until the department finally issues appropriate rules. See Surface Transportation Extension Act of 2004, Part V, H.R. 5183 § 7. With the passage of this bill, Congress is allowing trucking companies another year to force truckers to work 77 hours in a seven-day period.
Posted by Robert Shull
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