Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse has reintroduced the Transporting Livestock Across America Safety Act. The measure provides that hours of service and electronic logging device rules aren’t applicable until after a driver travels more than 300 air miles from their source. It also exempts loading and unloading times from the Hours of Service calculation of driving time. Sasse says his bill pushes back against over regulating of livestock haulers.
He says it’s a common sense measure that gives livestock haulers flexibility in dealing with federal regulations.
The legislation also extends the hours of service on duty time maximum hour requirement from 11 hours to a minimum of 15 hours and a maximum of 18 hours of on duty time. It also grants flexibility for drivers to rest at any point during their trip without counting against their hours of service time. The bill has 18 Senate co-sponsors as well as the backing of both the Nebraska Cattlemen Association and Farm Bureau.
