26 / 30
26
Oregon Trucking Associations, Inc.
Oregon Truck Dispatch
Bill Graves
ATA President & CEO
IT IS HARD TO BELIEVE
another year is behind
us and 2016 will be here in a few days. We’ve had
a very busy and successful year and I want to
thank each and every one of you for all you do
for the American Trucking Associations and the
trucking industry. Without your involvement,
experience and support, ATA would not be the
strong organization it is today.
We started 2015 with a list of legislative and
regulatory priorities and began advocating on
your behalf. Never before has ATA pursued as
broad and significant a policy agenda as we did
this year. Over 30 state trucking associations
participated in the ATA Call on Washington
program and ATA’s political action committee
TruckPAC raised over $1 million dollars.
Trucking’s voice was heard and we had one of
the most productive years in ATA history.
On the legislative front, President Obama signed
into law a five-year highway funding bill that
included reforms to the CSA program, allowance
for hair testing for drug screening, the creation
of a new, $11 billion highway freight bottlenecks
program, language to inhibit the expansion of
tolling on existing interstate highways and a
pilot program for younger Veterans. As a result
of the new law, FMCSA has already removed
CSA data from public display while necessary
and appropriate changes are being made.
In addition, the President signed funding
legislation that continues the suspension of the
onerous Hours-of-Service restart provisions,
as well as a tax extender package that makes
permanent an accelerated write-off by smaller
businesses of equipment newly placed into
service, and extends the bonus depreciation,
for three years at the 50% level, and then for
two more, at 40% and 30%, respectively. Both
provisions were extended retroactively, back to
the beginning of 2015. The 50-cent a gallon fuel
excise tax credit for propane used in forklifts has
been extended retroactively for two years—that
is, for calendar 2015 and 2016—as has the tax
credit for biodiesel blenders.
On the regulatory front, after more than a year
of ATA advocacy, FMCSA cut the random
testing for drugs in half to 25% annually, issued
a final Electronic Logging Device rule with a
two-year implementation plan, and issued a final
driver coercion rule. With ATA’s strong support,
NHTSA issued a final electronic stability control
rule and EPA and NHTSA issued a proposed
rule on Phase 2 Truck Fuel Efficiency standards,
to which ATA filed extensive comments.
ATA was integral and supportive in all of those
pro-trucking and pro-safety actions. Our
success however was a team effort with our state
trucking association and federation partners,
and you, our membership.
In January we selected 19 new America’s Road
Team Captains that joined the other veteran
Captains to educate the motoring public, our
policy makers and the media on our vital and
safe industry. Our Share the Road program
reached millions of motorists this year and
continues to grow. In October we graduated our
second LEAD ATA class and inducted a new
class of our future leaders.
We learned that the industry’s efforts to improve
safety on our highways is working and we are
safer than we have ever been. The fatality rate
involving large truck crashes has plummeted
39.2% over the past decade. As we all know
there is still work to be done, and one accident
or fatality is one too many, but because of our
efforts, our highways are safer, even as our
trucks deliver more goods all across our nation.
During the year we recognized many of our
members and partners, from National Truck
Driving Champions to TMC SuperTech winners
to James Hylan Grise of Walmart as our
National Driver of the Year. We recognized a
number of fleets, safety professionals and the
Colorado Motor Carriers Association during
the recent ATA Safety, Security and Human
Resources Conference, and during our annual
MCE meeting we recognized our Mike Russell
Trucking Industry Image Award winners, our
state trucking association members for their
years of service, John Esparza from Texas with
our TAEC Leadership Award and our advocacy
award winners.
ATRI continued to deliver excellent data and
analysis on the industry’s most important issues.
Among the ATRI research making headlines
this year: a study that quantified the impact of
non-preventable crashes on CSA scores; another
that documented the operational and safety
impacts resulting from the 34-hour restart
provisions; and, the release of ATRI’s annual list
of top freight bottlenecks. ATRI also examined
ATA UPDATE