Just shy of a month after announcing it would give drivers hauling livestock and other agricultural commodities a brief reprieve from compliance with the electronic logging device mandate, the U.S. DOT has officially released the waiver granting such haulers until March 18, 2018, to switch from paper logs to ELDs. The document is available on the DOT’s website but has not yet been officially published in the Federal Register.
The compliance extension gives drivers covered by the waiver an extra 90 days beyond the standard December 18 ELD mandate compliance deadline. The DOT’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration says the delay for ag and livestock haulers will also give the agency time to consider other ELD-related exemptions requested by drivers who work in the ag industry, the agency says.
The waiver does not change the hours of service regs that livestock and ag haulers operate under. Drivers covered by the waiver include those hauling “any agricultural commodity, non-processed food, feed, fiber, or livestock.” Livestock is defined as “…cattle, elk, reindeer, bison, horses, deer, sheep, goats, swine, poultry (including egg-producing poultry), fish used for food and other animals designated…that are part of a foundation herd or offspring.” The waivers apply to all drivers hauling the aforementioned loads, regardless of their distance traveled or whether they cross state lines.
Drivers operating under the compliance extension must have a copy of the waiver with them, available at this link. The agency’s decision to grant the compliance extension stems from multiple requests from trade groups representing the ag and livestock business, who said the ELD mandate “exposed incompatibilities between the HOS rules and the” ag hauling industry. The National Pork Producers Council, for instance, said the strict adherence to hours of service rules prompted by the ELD mandate would “[endanger] the health and welfare of animals transported.”
Carriers operating under the 90-day waiver must notify the agency within five business days if they are involved in a crash and relay details of the crash and their driving day to the agency.
The waiver for livestock haulers is likely to be published in the coming days in the Federal Register, which would legally codify the waiver. Also slated for publication in the coming days is a proposal by FMCSA to expand and clarify the hours of service exemptions granted to truckers hauling ag products.
Drivers operating in the ag industry already have an hours of service exemption that waives them from maintaining records of duty status if they drive within a 150-mile radius of the source of their ag products or livestock.
