For the WIIN: Congress Passes Key Supply Chain Bills
Considering how much discord currently exists not only within Congress, but between Congress and the larger populace, it’s always a welcome surprise when its members can come together in order pass legislation that will directly help the people that it is intended to help. That’s what happened earlier this month, when Congress passed not one, but two bills that will greatly benefit the supply chain industry: The Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act (WIIN), as well as one solidifying regulation reform related to the trucking industry’s 34-hour restart rule.
The first of these two pieces of legislation, the WIIN Act, will grant approval to 30 Army Corps of Engineers projects that had been sitting on the shelf, increase the depth of allowable dredging from 45 feet to 50 feet, and raise ports’ access to funds garnered from the Harbor Maintenance Tax. The passage of this bill is an unequivocal win for ports, who will now see a number of important projects get off the ground after months of waiting. Much of these projects address public safety concerns including preparedness for flooding and hurricanes, as well as navigation issues.
The American Association of Port Authorities (AAPA) celebrated Congress’s passage of the WIIN Act, which included all of their current priorities, noting via press release that “the final legislation helps ensure America’s ports and goods are strong global competitors for 21st century freight movement.”
The ports weren’t the only ones thanking Congress after this most recent session; the trucking industry was also in celebration mode—albeit one tempered by a sigh of long awaited relief—after they also clarified the rules revolving around a 34-hour restart for on-duty truckers by advancing a permanent hours-of-service fix.
The history of this legislation is more complicated, but it basically came down to Congress cleaning up a potential mess of its own making. In 2013, rule changes proposed by the trucking industry were put in place by a receptive Congress which would no longer require the mandated 34-hour restart regulations for truck drivers to include the 2 a.m.—5 a.m. time periods or the once-per-week limit. The industry successfully argued that these specific regulations did nothing to improve safety, and instead added hardships to the process for both drivers and delivery times. Congress put in place temporary updates to the rules, pending a study by the Federal Motor Carriers Safety Administration (which did eventually back the trucking industry’s requests). But in doing so, they accidently wrote in language that would have rolled back those changes had this recent session not concluded with a permanent fix.
Luckily, it did conclude that way, much to the joy of the trucking industry. The American Trucking Association (ATA) released a statement of their own, thanking Congress for the fix, noting that it “shifts the emphasis back to safety by removing flawed data from the rule making process. The entire industry will now be able to comply with this rule thanks to a common sense approach championed by a bipartisan group of legislators.”
Bipartisan legislation is a refreshing change of pace, especially in this tense post-Election political landscape. That this bipartisan action came in the face of an impending government shutdown related to a separate bill (which was averted thanks its last-minute passage) is even more cause for celebration. It shows that the process can still work, and that individuals and industries that wish to see Congress act on their behalf should not stop petitioning for change. Meanwhile, truckers, port officials, and the supply chain industry as a whole can celebrate this early holiday gift, and Congress can take satisfaction in this small, all-too-rare, moment of appreciation.
