Final Score of the EOBR Battle

Posted on July 11, 2012 
Filed Under HORROR STORIES, HOURS OF SERVICE, IN THE NEWS, POLITICS

Well, the shooting on the EOBR law has stopped for now, so here’s where we are:

The highway bill has passed; it was signed by the President. The EOBR was in it, so it is now law. The GOP House leadership was so desperate to pass a highway bill, any highway bill, spending lots of taxpayer money, that they essentially signed off on the awful Senate bill, with a few minor edits. Eliminating the EOBR mandate was not one of the minor edits.

At the same time the House passed an Appropriations bill, which allocates the money for DOT for FY 2013. It’s been awhile since I was a poly sci major in college, but I think the Congress must pass Appropriations bills every year or so to keep the giant government running. As they were debating the Appropriations bill (this was actually on CSPAN), amendments were being offered. One guy, Jeff Landry, a freshman Congressman from Louisiana, got up and said these black boxes are nonsense, and his amendment would prohibit the spending of any money on any sort of EOBR rulemakings or mandates.

The amendment was initially challenged and postponed, but when the matter was brought up again right before the final vote on the entire package, the challenge to the amendment requiring a recorded vote was waived, and the amendment passed by voice vote. Apparently, when an amendment is offered to the bill, they say, “all in favor aye, all opposed no, in the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it”. And if it’s a minor matter that’s it, next, onto new business. If it’s a major issue, the losing side demands the yeas and nays, and then they have a recorded vote. Since no one objected, the amendment passed via voice vote.

So, apparently, the Appropriations bill must now pass the Senate, and then be signed by the President. They don’t have to bring up the bill right away. They can stall, and pass Continuing Resolutions, which extend the current levels of funding for the length of the resolution. They can do that as long as the House goes along with it. If they do bring up the House Appropriations bill, they will almost certainly pass their own version with much more spending in it. Also, they will strip out the Landry amendment at that time.

So then it will go to conference, where you will have the House version (no EOBRs), and the Senate version (EOBRs). And almost certainly, whatever deal they cut in conference will eliminate the “no EOBR spending” language. Then it will be overwhelmingly passed by both Houses (just like the highway bill), signed by the President, and you will have to purchase EOBRs. I suppose that’s cynical, but after watching how the House GOP eagerly agreed to the statist Senate highway bill, it’s hard to see this being any different.

Is there a chance the anti-EOBR language will stay in the Appropriations bill? Oh sure, there’s a chance, stranger things have happened. It’s very unlikely though. The fact is, the Democrat-controlled Senate, along with a good percentage of statist GOP Senators like Lamar Alexander and Kay Bailey Hutchinson want EOBRs. The Boehner/Cantor leadership of the GOP-controlled House, despite their lies about promoting small business, want EOBRs. About the only people who don’t want EOBRs, are Tea Party Congressman, the OOIDA, and the majority of motor carriers. Oh yeah, also the American taxpayer… if he realized this EOBR mandate is just another backdoor tax he’ll be paying at the retail counter, that is. That stacked up against the House and Senate leadership isn’t going to get very far.

If you still want to fight the good fight, like Jimmy Stewart in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”, then call your Congressman and Senators, and tell them you want the Landry-Rahall amendment to stay IN the DOT Appropriations bill, also known as HR 5972. If enough noise is made… well, anything is possible.

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