Insights - May/June 2018 - 36

GOVERNMENT NEWS
The latest from the White House was
voiced in early May by Press Secretary
Sarah Huckabee Sanders when she said,
"We're going to continue to look at ways to
improve the nation's infrastructure, but in
terms of a specific piece of legislation, I'm
not aware that that will happen by the end
of the year."

Other Legislation
There were other portions of
incomplete business.
The House of Representatives
approved an authorization bill for
the Federal Aviation Administration,
called F4A, that included a preemption
provision to prevent states from creating
rules to govern meal and rest breaks
for interstate truckers. This has been a
longtime priority for truckers who believe
states have no legal right to regulate any
form of interstate commerce.
However, the F4A bill and that
provision were hung up in the Senate as
this issue of Intermodal Insights went to
press.
Another issue that would impact
on the freight industry was accounted
for in the House F4A measure. It was
a provision to create a national hiring
standard for commercial freight motor
carriers. That measure, advocated by the
Transportation Intermediaries Association, would standardize hiring practices
and could reduce the challenges faced by
brokers as well as their customers in determining what constitutes a safe motor
carrier. It is anticipated that should such
a measure pass, the legal liability for the
purchaser of the motor carrier service
also might be reduced.
The House of Representatives
also passed two other bills relating
to information security. One required
the Federal Railroad Administration to
improve cybersecurity for rail safety
data. The other directed the Surface
Transportation Board to improve its
information security system. Those bills
await Senate action as well.
"We've seen numerous incidents
recently that we must learn from," said
U.S. Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.), who
chairs the Railroads, Pipelines and
Hazardous Materials Subcommittee

36 Intermodal Insights | May/June 2018

in the House. "Better FRA accident
reporting and STB cybersecurity
measures will make a difference for the
safety of our nation's rail system moving
forward."

postponed until June 2021. The Federal
Motor Carrier Safety Administration
indicated the postponement was
due to the absence of the necessary
information technology.

Streamlined Approval Process

State Issues

One action that did advance was the
completion of "One Federal Decision."
It is a memorandum of understanding
among 12 federal agencies, including
the Department of Transportation, to
create a more unified approach to review
and permitting processes that involve
multiple agencies. The MOU puts one
agency in charge of moving a project
forward, with a single environmental
impact statement and timetable for
reviews that must be followed by all
agencies involved in a case.
In the maritime sector, questions
about ownership of a container terminal
in California were raised by a federal
agency called the Committee on Foreign
Investment in the U.S.
Ocean carrier COSCO is seeking to
complete a $6.3 billion acquisition of
Orient Overseas Container Line. News
outlets reported in the U.S. that COSCO
officials met with representatives of that
committee to discuss the OOCL terminal
in Long Beach, California. The reports
said COSCO was prepared to divest the
OOCL terminal in order to complete the
acquisition.
The Federal Maritime Commission
said it planned to conduct an
investigation following complaints from
cargo owners that ocean carriers were
unilaterally changing contract terms
by cancelling subsequent moves after
cargo arrives at a port. The complaints
by the cargo owners were said to be
due to a lack of inland trucking capacity
cited by ocean carriers. FMC said it was
sending letters to the ocean carriers that
allegedly were taking such steps and
requiring a response to its letters by late
May. Further details were not available at
press time.
Some scheduled government action
didn't happen at all. A rule that was
supposed to take effect in June 2018,
which would have ended the need for
truckers to carry their medical cards, was

In the states, the focus on actions in
California continued.
Activists who hope to repeal recent
fuel tax and vehicle fee increases in
California that are being used in part to
fund state infrastructure investments
said they had garnered enough
signatures for a vote on the measure.
California's Supreme Court further
addressed the definition of what
constitutes an independent contractor
in a case known as Dynamex Operations
West vs. Superior Court of Los Angeles.
The ruling, which has implications
for intermodal trucking, made it
more difficult to classify workers as
independent contractors, specifically in
wage cases.
"When a worker has not
independently decided to engage in an
independently established business
but instead is simply designated an
independent contractor ... there is a
substantial risk that the hiring business
is attempting to evade the demands
of an applicable wage order through
misclassification," Chief Justice Tani
Cantil-Sakauye wrote for the court.
In California's assembly, measures
were discussed that would address
funding of zero-emission trucks and
inland ports. No proposals became law.
The bill numbers are AB 1561, 3015 and
3079.
The issue of worker status as an
independent contractor or an employee
was reviewed in the Alaska (HB 79) and
Georgia (HB 1002) state legislatures. No
laws were passed.
Rhode Island officials debated motor
carrier indemnity clauses in SB 2592,
and proposals to increase truck size and
weight were on the agenda in Tennessee
in HB 1836 and SB 1673. Once again,
neither proposal became law.
Find the latest state legislative activity
at www.intermodal.org/resource-center/
government-affairs/legislative#stateleg.
http://www.intermodal.org/resource-center/government-affairs/legislative#stateleg http://www.intermodal.org/resource-center/government-affairs/legislative#stateleg
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Insights - May/June 2018
