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Transportation & Infrastructure Committee

The U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee voted last week to keep a trucking provision, tucked in an aviation reform bill, that would prevent states from enacting laws requiring companies to schedule meal-and-rest breaks for drivers or to pay drivers by the hour.

The amendment seeking to remove the provision, introduced by Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-Calif.) at markup of the aviation authorization bill Feb. 11, failed by a 31-27 margin.

Proposed amendments to the bill were still being considered by committee members at press time.

In offering her amendment, Napolitano said 21 states and U.S. territories have requirements that carriers provide for meal-and-rest breaks for drivers. She said such requirements, as in California, are “very reasonable when you consider that truck drivers can be subjected to 14 hours of on-duty time.”

The 2011 California meal-break law, which has been mired in litigation, requires employers to provide a “duty-free” 30-minute meal break for employees who work more than five hours a day and a second “duty-free” 30-minute meal break for those who work more than 10 hours a day.

A similar provision contained in the aviation bill calling for pre-emption from the state laws originally was included in a House version of the 2015 surface transportation law, known as the FAST Act but was removed during conference with the Senate.

Committee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) said trucking companies already are pre-empted from such regulations by a 1994 federal law that prohibits states from enacting laws that interfere with motor carriers “prices, routes and services.”

While court rulings in litigation over federal pre-emption issues related to meal-and-break laws have been mixed, the language in the aviation bill would note specifically that meal, break or pay regulations are exempt from state laws, Such regulations create a “patchwork” of regulatory requirements that “undermine the efficiency of interstate commerce,” he said.

“This is an interstate commerce issue, and we have rules on the books dealing with interstate commerce, and California is doing things that are disrupting that,” Shuster added. “We have trucking companies that are leaving California or deciding they are not going to go to California because of this.”

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), who supported Napolitano’s amendment, said the pre-emption language would prevent carriers from requirements that they provide truck drivers breaks. It also would not require companies to pay drivers detention pay when they exhaust their driving hours while delayed at loading docks.

“There is no reason for this,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), who supported removing the provision. “Let the states decide, and let’s be decent to working people who drive trucks.”

However, Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.), who opposed removing the language from the bill, called the California law a “huge mess” that is no longer just a California problem. “If it hasn’t come to your state, beware, because it will come to your state very, very soon by way of lawsuit,” Denham said.

Rep. Ryan Costello (R-Pa.) agreed.

“The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration itself said the California meal-and-rest break laws are not related to commercial motor carrier safety,” Costello said. “In fact, what I hear from drivers is that by forcing drivers to take additional, unwanted and unnecessary breaks, the drivers’ days get extended to maximum on-duty limits under the federal rules.”

The pre-emption provision was supported by dozens of transportation stakeholders, including American Trucking Associations, National Private Truck Council, Truckload Carriers Association, Truck Renting and Leasing Association, Association of American Railroads, the Intermodal Association of North America, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Retail Federation and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

ATA spokesman Sean McNally said that, if the aviation bill passes, it will ensure drivers are subject to a uniform set of federal rules.

The pre-emptive provision, Sec. 611 in H.R. 4441, “clarifies that Congress intended the trucking industry to be governed by a single set of federal rules and break requirements created by the federal agency tasked with overseeing motor carrier safety,” McNally said.

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