33-foot trailer proposal hits headwinds in Senate and from trucking leaders

The proposal that would allow LTL carriers to introduce 33-foot twin “pup” trailers is running into stiff opposition in the Senate – and from other segments of the trucking industry.
 
In an unusual show of contentiousness, 16 CEOs or presidents of major trucking companies recently wrote to top Republican and Democratic members of the Senate Appropriations Committee urging them to oppose the 33-foot trailer amendment to an highway appropriations bill recently passed narrowly by the House of Representatives.
 
In the letter to Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., the 16 trucking leaders said the amendment that would force states to accept 33-foot trailers on all U.S. highways is unnecessary and divisive.
 
“The trucking industry is deeply divided on this issue,” the letter from the trucking leaders said. The letter, signed by CEOs of such major trucking companies as truckload giants Swift Transportation, Knight Transportation, J.B. Hunt, Heartland Express and multi-regional LTL carrier Pitt Ohio, was obtained by Logistics Management.
 
“This measure would have a negative impact on highway safety, accelerate wear and tear on the nation’s highway system and would make it difficult for small trucking companies, which are the heart of our industry, to compete,” the letter continued. “There has not been sufficient dialogue around this measure to truly understand the unintended consequences it would have.”
 
The measure is being pushed largely because of massive lobbying by small package and LTL giants Federal Express Corp. and UPS. It also includes backing from Con-way and a few other regional and interregional LTL operations that would be able to utilize the 18 percent greater productivity and flexibility that twin-33-foot pups would offer.
   
Although it still faces a possible White House veto, the measure recently passed in the House in a fiscal year 2016 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act known by its shorthand title—the so-called T-HUD bill. It would provide $55.3 billion in discretionary spending for transportation, a $1.5 billion increase above the current funding but $9.7 billion less than the Obama administration proposed.

The American Trucking Associations claims use of twin 33-foot trailers would improve capacity and safety while not increasing truck weights. It would be the trucking industry’s first nationwide productivity improvement since the Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1993 allowed twin 48-foot trailers in exchange for a nickel increase in the federal tax on diesel fuel. ATA also says the use of 33-foot pups would also cut down on the number of truck trips needed to move domestic freight, reduce emissions, and cut the industry’s exposure to crashes.
 
But as the letter from the trucking opposition indicates, the industry is far from united on this issue. Also, the Department of Transportation recently issued a long-awaited study on truck sizes and weights and concluded that no changes should be made at this time.
 
The House-passed bill seems to be running into headwinds in the Senate as well. In a letter to Sens. Collins and Reed, the chairman and raining member of the Senate Appropriations Committee respectively, Sens. Roger F. Wicker, R-Miss., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., urged opposition to the 33-foot trailer proposal as well.
 
“The language would force states to accept double 33-foot-long trailers on all U.S. highways,” the Wicker and Blumenthal letter obtained by LM says. “We believe that provisions of this nature should first be fully considered by the House and Senate by committees with jurisdiction over this important policy area.”
 
The senators concluded that introduction nationwide of 33-foot trailers would have a “negative impact” on safety, accelerate highway deterioration and “ignore the laws of many states” that currently prohibit such trailer combinations.
 
“At a minimum,” the senators’ letter says, “there has not been sufficient dialogue around this measure to understand its full impact.”
 
The letter from the trucking leaders was signed by top officials and CEOs of Celadon Trucking, Central Transportation, Covenant Transport, Crete Carrier Corp., D.M. Bowman, Dupre Logistics, Gordon Trucking, Heartland Express, J.B. Hunt Transport, KLLM Transport, Knight Transportation, Pitt Ohio, P.A.M. Transport, May Trucking, Swift Transportation and USA Truck.