New York State Supreme Court Justice Paul Feinman denied a temporary restraining order sought by a group of trucking and construction companies who argued that weight restrictions on New York City’s Bronx-Long Island bridges were an economic hardship. Previously, trucks weighing more than 80,000 pounds were able to obtain permits to use the bridges, but the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority imposed more stringent restrictions in the wake of the Minneapolis bridge collapse early last month.
U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) proposed legislation (S. 1997) that would require the installation of automatic temperature compensating equipment in new and upgraded retail fuel pumps within six years. The Future Accountability in Retail Fuel Act would provide assistance for retailers to comply – $1,000 per pump, but no more than $10,000 per retailer – and impose penalties on those that don’t comply.
A federal judge in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., sentenced three employees of Fort Lauderdale-based Genesis Petroleum to five years’ probation as a result of their guilty pleas to charges of violating federal hazmat transportation regulations. The drivers submitted false delivery receipts stating they had delivered 11,000 gallons of fuel to customers, but the fuel was diverted to illegal tanks.
The owners of Queens, N.Y.-based Mystic Tank Lines and Brooklyn, N.Y.-based T&S Trucking were arrested in late July and charged with stealing and reselling tens of millions of gallons of heating oil. A federal indictment alleges that the scheme, which involved skimming oil from customers charged for full loads, had begun in 1990.
Q What is the effect of the recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on the hours-of-service rules?
A By order and decision entered July 24, the court found the most meritorious aspects of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s revised hours-of-service rules to be “arbitrary and capricious.” Although the decision rests on procedural issues, FMCSA faces a big challenge to preserve the current regulations. I am sure there will be an effort to appeal and/or seek congressional action, but to me success seems unlikely.
What the court did was to strike down the 34-hour weekly restart and extension of driving time from 10 to 11 hours. Remember that it was these two concessions in the revised rules that gave some relief to the harsh inflexibility of the initial rule.
