How Trucking Rules Have Changed for Agriculture Amid COVID-19

Truck drivers have been deemed essential to keeping the nation’s food supply flowing amid the national COVID-19 pandemic response.

The National Grain and Feed Association (NGFA) has been working actively with national and state authorities to clarify the quickly evolving rules for the agricultural commodities industry.

Max Fisher, NGFA vice president of economics and government relations, provided an overview on hours of service, truck weight, and licensing changes amid the challenging COVID-19 landscape during a webinar April 2 sponsored by the association and Grain Journal magazine.

Because of the pandemic relief effort, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) for the first time has waived hours-of-service rules for drivers transporting essential items, Fisher said.

Those items include medical supplies, fuel, and food. Livestock, animal feed, and fertilizer fall under this waiver because they are considered “precursors” to “essential items,” ie. food. This waiver does not include pet food or grain, however.

“One would think that if fertilizers are considered a precursor to food, and feed is considered a precursor to food that grain would be as well,” Fisher said. “Unfortunately, that’s a bit of a gray area, and we’ve asked USDA if they would be willing to reach out to USDOT to get that clarified, but USDOT still has not.”

Fisher noted that drivers transporting agricultural commodities such as grain and feed, but not including processed products, already are exempt from hours-of-service rules as long as they are within 150 miles of the load origin.

State Trucking Response

Many states already have increased truck weight limits to facilitate the movement of those essential products, Fisher said.

NGFA joined with more than 60 national agricultural groups in a letter that urged each state to increase truck weight limits on highways within their jurisdiction to a “minimum harmonized weight” of 88,000 pounds.

“Increased truck weights improve the food, and agriculture industry’s efficiency and capacity to deliver essential food, feed and key ingredients, which sustain our food supply chain,” the groups said in a March 30 letter to all state governors, lieutenant governors, transportation directors, and agriculture commissioners.

The letter noted that the federal Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security Act, signed into law on March 27, expressly clarifies USDOT’s authority to allow states to increase truck weight limits on U.S. highways and federal interstate highways within their jurisdictions during the COVID-19 emergency.

“I recommend that anyone who wants to use these higher limits to reach out to your state department of transportation to verify the products that qualify for these higher weight limits, if your state has raised them,” Fisher said.

Most states have closed their driver’s license agencies to the public and are available only online. They also have extended the deadline to renew commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs). Many states are not issuing new CDLs.

“States have got to find a way to issue new licenses. As time marches on, this will only mushroom, as we have got to have the ability to bring new drivers in,” Fisher said.

Fisher called the number of changes to trucking rules in such a short period of time “unprecedented” and emphasized a final point.

“It’s good business practice to check with your state department of transportation on changes to trucking rules due to COVID-19,” he said.

More information about the pandemic’s impact on trucking is available at the ngfa.org COVID-19 resources page under “Trucking/Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.”

Webinar Presentation Slides

• Randy Gordon - Designation of Food and Agriculture as Critical Infrastructure and What That Means
  
  
• David Fairfield - FDA Inspection Flexibility During COVID-19 Pandemic
  
  
• Bobby Frederick - Current and Future Financial Relief Enacted or Planned by Congress
  
  
• Mary Hitchcock / Charlie Delacruz - Continued Functioning of NGFA Arbitration System
  
  
• Jess McCluer - Federal Grain Inspection Service Continuity of Operations Plan
  
  
• Max Fisher - Waivers From Truck Driving Hours of Service Regulations and Harmonizing State Weight Limit

Transcripts

NGFA COVID-19 Webinar Presentations

NGFA COVID-19 Webinar Q&A

Webinar

NGFA Webinar Recording: Grain, Feed, Processing, and Export Industry Update on COVID-19 (April 2 - 101 min.)