"America Builds: How Trucking Supports American Communities"
House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Highways and Transit
2025-03-26
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Source: Congress.gov
Summary
This congressional hearing examines key issues facing the U.S. trucking industry, including driver shortages, safety concerns, and infrastructure challenges. Witnesses from major industry groups discuss the impact of federal regulations, the need for improved driver training and parking, and the risks associated with increased truck weight and autonomous truck technology. The hearing highlights policy debates on truck weight limits, hours of service, and freight fraud, with a focus on ensuring safe, efficient, and sustainable supply chains. Key participants include representatives from the Truckload Carriers Association, Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, Shippers Coalition, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, who emphasize the importance of fair wages, access to safe parking, and improved training programs to address workforce retention and safety. The hearing underscores the need for balanced policies that support both safety and economic viability in the trucking sector.
Participants
Transcript
On highways and transit will come to order. I ask unanimous consent that the chairman be authorized to declare a recess at any time during today's hearing. Without objection, so ordered. Also ask unanimous consent that members not on the subcommittee be permitted to sit with the subcommittee at today's hearing and ask questions. Without objection, so ordered. As a reminder, if members wish to insert a document into the record, please also email it to documentsti at mail.house.gov. Again, that's documentsti at mail.house.gov. I now recognize myself for the purposes of an opening statement for five minutes. Today's hearing builds on the subcommittee's efforts to examine key issues concerning our nation's surface transportation programs as we work to develop and enact an on-time, multi-year surface bill. At our previous hearings, we received testimony on the importance of this subcommittee's programs to the American trucking industry, which has an instrumental role in the safe and efficient movement of goods across the highway system to each and every one of our communities. Today's hearing further examines these programs and their impacts with a specific focus on our motor carriers. As a predominant users of the highway system, the trucking industry moved nearly two thirds of all goods into our communities in 2023. That's 12.9 billion freight tons worth an estimated $13.56 trillion. In fact, 80% of communities across the country depend solely on trucks to receive their goods. More than likely, every member of this subcommittee represents a community that exclusively relies on trucking to stock their supermarket shelves, transport critical medicines to local pharmacies, and ensure retail stores have merchandise. In North Carolina, for example, 85.6% of communities are dependent on trucking. The industry supports one out of every 15 jobs across the state, and I'm grateful to those men and women who day in and day out take on the task of delivering for all North Carolinians.
And this is true all over the country. The trucking workforce's commitment to delivering for North Carolinians was on full display last year when Hurricane Helene ripped through our state, devastating communities, wiping out homes, and killing more than 100 people. In the wake of the storm, truckers across the state and region and across the country, quite frankly, rallied without hesitation to deliver much-needed aid to our friends and neighbors. The bottom line is that truckers deliver essential goods when disaster strikes and serve as a key partner in larger emergency coordination and relief efforts. While federal law provides for targeted regulatory relief from certain restrictions during those times, we will continue to explore ways to help improve disaster response outcomes. And despite the importance of trucking to our communities and the supply chain at large, challenges continue to plague the trucking industry and the men and women behind the wheel. I suspect our witnesses today and encourage our witnesses today to detail some of the broad challenges the industry faces, including growing and retaining the truck driver workforce, ensuring seamless compliance with federal, state, and local rules and regulations, and addressing rising costs associated with moving goods from point A to point B for both small and large operators. We have an opportunity in our surface bill to address such challenges in a smart and targeted manner while strengthening local communities and our economy. I look forward to working with my colleagues on the subcommittee to make it easier for women and men to choose this profession. And in so doing, we must explore ways to make it easier for individuals to train and test for a commercial driver's license, as well as build off the Safe Driver Apprenticeship Program established in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to allow 18 to 20-year-old drivers to cross state lines. So we welcome, panel, your ideas about how to help the trucking industry continue to safely and efficiently deliver for all of our communities.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank Subcommittee Chair Rouser for holding this hearing on the importance of the trucking sector. These last five years have reminded us again and again of the great debt we owe our trucking workforce. Despite a pandemic and global and domestic supply chain disruptions, truckers have never stopped delivering essential goods. 73% of all domestic freight Freight by weight from groceries to life-saving medicine are moved by trucks. I would like to recognize the five District of Columbia area truck drivers from Teamsters Local 639 who are in attendance today. Steven Raybaud. to join Jarvis Sr., William Olden, Clarence Carey, and John Wright. Top of mind today is ensuring truck drivers are paid the wages they deserve. While many work more than 60 hour weeks, they are often paid by the load, not the hour, and are responsible for funding their own fuel and healthcare. Drivers also face other challenges in doing their jobs, including inadequate parking and rest areas. Providing our drivers with safe workplaces
and fair wages is key to regaining and growing the trucking workforce. We cannot discuss trucking in America without considering the safety of both drivers and those who share roads with them. Over the past two decades, more and more people have lost their lives each year in large truck crashes.
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