79 Trucking Bills, 3 Laws: Congress Fails to Strengthen Enforcement

The 118th and 119th Congress introduced 79 trucking-related bills across both chambers, yet only three became law, and none expanded enforcement capacity or carrier oversight. This stark legislative failure reveals a fundamental disconnect between industry needs and congressional action. Two of the three enacted laws were modest housekeeping measures for Commercial Driver's License (CDL) administration, while the most consequential trucking legislation passed was a deregulation: a Congressional Review Act resolution striking down California's Advanced Clean Trucks rules. The data exposes a troubling pattern: while representative workhorses like Rep.

Tracey Mann (Kansas) and Sen. Deb Fischer (Nebraska), primarily from freight-corridor and agricultural states, authored dozens of trucking bills, these efforts died in subcommittee or languished on the House calendar. Most critically, the two bills with the highest industry priority, the Motor Carrier Safety Selection Standard Act and the Truck Parking Safety Improvement Act, both advanced through committee and reached the calendar before dying. Meanwhile, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman and ranking member, the legislators with the most authority to advance trucking policy, sponsored zero bills on the subject over four years.

For supply chain professionals, this legislative paralysis has immediate consequences: carriers continue operating under fragmented safety standards, brokers lack national vetting protocols despite recent legal pressure from Montgomery v. Caribe, and enforcement capacity remains static despite escalating safety demands. Congress chose regulatory rollback over modernization, leaving logistics operators, freight brokers, and driver advocacy groups without the policy tools needed to address industry challenges systematically.