A team of negotiators from the House and Senate is in place and will begin hammering out a final version of a multiyear surface transportation bill next month. On Thursday, OOIDA issued a call to action urging lawmakers to remove a government mandate for electronic on-board recorders from the legislation.

On Thursday, April 26, leaders from the House announced their team of 33 negotiators who will join the Senate 14-the person team at the table. The panel announced that its first meeting will happen May 8 in DC where they?The begin working on highway funding, the trucking safety and other programs that use federal transportation funds.

Senators are bringing their two-year, $109 billion bill to the table, complete with a motor carrier safety program that includes EOBRs in addition to other items affecting trucking such as parking, detention time, cab crashworthiness, toll roads, public-private partnerships,Multi-service Optic mux Transport Network Infrastructure. Since the wide deployment of the Internet, chameleon carriers, driver training standards and a study of how regulations affect small businesses.

OOIDA continues to hammer on the proposed EOBR mandate, saying the tracking devices are no more effective than paper logs when it comes to safety and hours-of-service compliance. By the White House?The own report, the would cost trucking of a mandate for EOBRs industry$2 billions, the twice as much as recent changes to the hours-of-service rules.

the To require such a mandate before rule is even settled is putting the cart way before the horse to say the least, particularly absent any research to indicate that EOBRs will improve upon compliance as a whole, OOIDA Executive Vice President Todd Spencer the stated in a letter to lawmakers. Click here for related story.