Ribble Votes for Long-Term Transportation Legislation

Press Release

U.S. Representative Reid Ribble (WI-08) released the following statement after voting with a majority of the House of Representatives to pass the conference report of the Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act in a vote of 359 to 65.

"The transportation policy in this bill is a win for Wisconsin. In additional to increasing funding the state is projected to get by nine percent, the FAST Act provides five years of certainty for state and local governments, increases efficiency, and streamlines the long and expensive project review processes. I also successfully added language ensure that our emergency vehicles can safely use the Interstate system, that laws are sensible in allowing construction industry drivers flexibility, and that milk can be transported in an efficient manner."

While Representative Ribble supported the policy reforms made in the bill, he opposed many of the funding mechanisms. You can watch or read a speech he gave on the House floor regarding the bill's funding here.

The FAST Act is a five-year plan for America's roads, bridges, and public transportation. Representative Ribble served as a conferee in a group of Representatives and Senators selected to work through the differences in the House and Senate transportation bills, the STRR Act and DRIVE Act. The Senate is expected to vote this afternoon or tomorrow on the FAST Act in order to send it to the President's desk before the current highway bill authorization expires on December 4, 2015.

As a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Representative Ribble has been a leader in the push for a long-term fully funded transportation bill. He served as a conferee on the last surface transportation conference committee in 2012, and his work resulted in historic reforms to the project delivery process to cut costs and root out waste.

Representative Ribble worked to include the following in the House's highway bill as well as the transportation conference report:

A bipartisan amendment to implement a national standard for the treatment of emergency vehicles under federal vehicle weight laws. In recent years, we have made significant efforts to improve our emergency response capabilities, and modern equipment is critical to ensuring that firefighters and other first responders are able to respond effectively to all kinds of emergencies. In some cases, new operating requirements for emergency vehicles are causing them to exceed current federal and state axle weight limitations. Rep. Ribble's amendment would ensure that fire trucks and other heavy emergency vehicles are exempt from axle weight rules designed for commercial trucks, but it is carefully tailored to have little impact on road conditions, given the small numbers of emergency vehicles in service and their especially infrequent use on public highways.

Bipartisan language authored by Rep. Ribble to give construction industry drivers additional flexibility under Hours of Service rules. Commercial motor vehicle drivers in the construction industry often haul perishable materials like asphalt and concrete from a construction company's central shop to a specific project site. As a result, these drivers spend long periods of time waiting to pick up materials and loading or unloading equipment, but they are considered "on-duty" for the entire duration of the trip even when they are not driving. Current law allows construction drivers to reset their weekly on-duty time after a 24-hour consecutive off-duty period, instead of 34 hours. However, this exemption is only allowed if those drivers work within a 50 air-mile radius. Because construction companies operate today in larger areas than they did when the exemption was put in place two decades ago, Rep. Ribble's amendment increases this air-mile radius to 75 air-miles.

Two targeted truck weight provisions to help Wisconsin's economy:

An amendment with Rep. Sean Duffy (WI-7) to allow logging trucks that weigh up to the Wisconsin state legal limit of 98,000 pounds to drive on a 12-mile stretch of Interstate Highway in Marathon County, Wisconsin. Currently, these logging trucks travel on the state highway, but are forced onto very narrow back roads when that highway becomes an Interstate for its last 12 miles. This is a significant safety risk for families and local communities in Wisconsin. This amendment would solve this problem and allow the log trucks to stay on the highway for this final 12-mile stretch. Before this highway became an Interstate, these log trucks were able to travel on this exact 12-mile stretch.

Language that would clarify that fluid milk can be treated as a non-divisible load under existing federal transportation law. This provision recognizes the unique aspects of transporting milk, as well as the food safety requirements governing milk. It would allow states to issue unique permits so that milk is moved from the farm to the plant as efficiently as possible.

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