February 15, 2023
A proverbial “bad penny” of legislative proposals is back as big business interests are busy promoting a measure in Congress that would allow heavier and more dangerous trucks on the nation’s highways.
The idea is not a new one — proponents of larger commercial trucks have pushed the proposal for several years running, and Congress (with the exception of a temporary reprieve during the worst of the pandemic) has done the right thing and shot it down.
The bill, called the Safer Highways and Increased Performance for Interstate Trucking (SHIP IT) Act, is positioned as a broad supply chain measure, but would raise of the current 80,000-pound weight limit for trucks operating on interstate highways to 91,000 pounds or higher. It also would authorize the secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation to permit states to set their own interstate weight limits.
While the bill has many positives, these measures must be rejected.
As the public-safety focused Coalition Against Bigger Trucks notes, increasing the allowable weight limits of trucks would inevitably lead to more crashes on our highways, more damage to our infrastructure (the cost of which is borne by taxpayers), further subsidies to the trucking industry and a significant shift of freight from rail to highways. Fiscally responsible Republicans should take note.
Yet Democrats should pay attention too, as organized labor likewise is opposed. The Teamsters, who represent many U.S. truck drivers, have stressed their opposition, saying that the proposal, “would jeopardize the safety of workers, motorists and any American that uses an interstate highway – all while doing nothing to address the root causes of our nation’s supply chain woes.”
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