House funding bill includes meal, rest break preemption

About two weeks after a Senate panel adopted the language in a different bill, a House subcommittee has approved a fiscal 2018 Department of Transportation (DOT) funding bill that would bar states from regulating meal and rest breaks applicable to employees subject to the hours-of-service regulations.

The bill also would prohibit the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) from requiring carriers that transport livestock or insects to install electronic logging devices. And it would block adoption of a safety fitness determination (SFD) rule until an FMCSA corrective action plan related to the recent National Academies report on the Compliance, Safety, Accountability program and Safety Measurement System is certified.

The full House Appropriations Committee is schedule to consider the legislation on July 17.

The preemption amendment also was adopted by the Senate Commerce Committee in late June as part of a bill to authorize programs for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The connection with FAA is that the measure clarifies a provision in the FAA Authorization Act of 1994 that preempted state regulation of motor carrier rates, routes and services.

The legislative provision in the House funding bill was included in the House version of the fiscal 2017 DOT funding bill, but it was not adopted in the final government wide funding legislation.