An amendment included in the $1 trillion spending bill passed last month by Congress suspends two provisions of a trucking rule that long-haul firms say have crunched efficiency. That could mean lower logistics prices for mills and export buyers. The trucking provisions in the bill relate to hours-of-service (HOS) regulations that were introduced in 2013 and which many trucking firms and groups have fiercely opposed. Here's how industry publication Transport Topics characterized the change brought about by the spending bill: "The legislation suspends the requirement that all qualifying restarts contain two consecutive periods of time between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m., and that it can only be used once every 168 hours (or seven days). In other words, the restart rule reverts back to the simple 34-hour restart in effect from 2003 to June 2013." The HOS requirements will be dropped for a year, and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration will conduct a study showing the impact of altering the legislation. With the regulations suspended, long-haul truckers will be able to increase their weekly maximum driving hours from 70 to 82. From a recycling perspective, the entities most likely to be affected are mills and other companies that buy material from one section of the country and pay long-haul services to transport it to their manufacturing bases. Companies that buy material for export could also see lower prices - those companies typically pay to have material shipped to U.S. ports before it is moved into foreign markets.
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