On July 29, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) introduced the Commercial Truck Safety Act (S 1450), co-sponsored by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota), which proposes a new remedy to the disjunction between state-approved truck weight tolerances and Interstate rules. Sen. Snowe’s bill proposes to give any state the right to petition the U.S. Department of Transportation to authorize a three-year “demonstration program” in that state that would enable a six-axle configuration weighing up to 100,000 pounds to access the Interstate system in that state. The bill requires any approved state to establish a “safety committee” to submit appropriate documentation evaluating the demonstration program and, upon the U.S. Secretary of Transportation’s favorably evaluating the safety committee’s submission, for the tested configuration to be adopted permanently. The bill does not establish any fee program.
In many respects, this bill is a refinement of Sen. Susan Collins’s “Maine-Vermont Pilot”—which made the roads of Maine and Vermont safer for most of 2010—and it reflects some of the learnings from that program: (1) don’t rely on the federal Department of Transportation to do your safety reporting for you and (2) outline a process for permanent adoption of the “demonstration program” at its successful conclusion. Asking for a 100,000-pound upper limit, rather than reiterating the Safe and Efficient Transportation Act’s 97,000-pound upper limit, reflects the status quo on Maine’s (and approximates that on Minnesota’s) state road system. Some terms of the bill also appear to incorporate policy suggestions that U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood provided to Sen. Snowe this March at a Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee Hearing (video at this link; relevant portion begins at the 2:30-minute mark).
At the time Congress recessed, no House companion bill had been introduced.