White House to Attack State Trucking Rules

The Bush Administration announced Tuesday that it will take aggressive action, as part of the President’s election-year deregulation drive, to stop states from imposing their own rates and regulations on interstate truck shipments.

Transportation costs account for 20% of the delivered cost of manufactured products, the White House said, and regulation “acts as a ‘hidden tax’ that makes almost all consumer goods more expensive.”

It said burdensome state regulations were costing consumers billions of dollars a year in higher transportation costs.

A new policy statement from the Interstate Commerce Commission specifies that interstate truck shipments remain under federal jurisdiction “even if, prior to delivery, the shipment temporarily rests in a warehouse located in the destination state.”

ICC Chairman Edward J. Philbin said his agency has been battling state regulatory bodies that “prosecute and . . . threaten to prosecute to enforce their views, which are contrary to a long, unbroken string of decisions” by the ICC and federal courts.

He noted that the ICC recently handed down a decision in favor of Texas warehousemen fighting higher rates imposed on them by the Texas Railroad Commission.

James Rill, assistant attorney general for antitrust matters, said the Justice Department will aggressively back up the ICC’s claims to jurisdiction and seek injunctions if necessary to block state regulatory actions.

Forty-two states regulate shipping within their borders, and Texas is considered one of the most aggressive in policing carriers.

Rep. Bob Clement (D-Tenn.) has a bill pending that would exempt small-package express carriers from intrastate regulation. The Bush Administration has proposed legislation that would end state economic regulation of all interstate carriers.