The U.S. Department of Transportation has officially suspended the requirement that livestock haulers use electronic logging devices or ELDs in their trucks. Iowa Pork Producers Association Producer Education Director Jamee Eggers says this as a huge win for both U.S. livestock producers and haulers.

In 2012, the Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Enhancement Act mandated that drivers of commercial motor vehicles replace their paper logs with ELDs by December 18th of 2017. The livestock industry was granted a waiver and asked for an exemption as Eggers says the rule wasn’t workable for livestock haulers.

Eggers says the pork industry used the TQA or Transport Quality Assurance program to convince Transportation Department officials to suspend the ELD rule for livestock haulers.

She says while the ELD suspension is in place until further notice, it is not permanent.

Eggers cites incompatibility between transporting livestock and the Hours of Service Rules which limited truckers to driving 11 hours daily, after 10 consecutive hours off duty, and restricted their on-duty time to 14 consecutive hours, which includes non-driving time.