NCBA Seeks Increasing Federal Truck Weight Limits

Kelsey Kemp, Associate Director of Government Relations with the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, says that the federal truck weight limit has not been updated since the 1980s and remains capped at 80,000 pounds. She says raising that limit could bring significant benefits for agriculture and transportation efficiency.

“Our current Surface Transportation reauthorization bill expires at the end of next year, so that's something that we are working on now. We're hoping to see text of that bill soon, and ncpa is really focused on including a couple of our most prominent transportation priorities in that bill. One of those is increasing truck weights for federal interstates, and another one is exempting livestock haulers from hours of service regulations as well as electronic logging device mandates.”

When it comes to cattle haulers, Kemp says that NCBA supports a pilot program that would allow states to opt in on whether or not they want to increase trucking weight limits.

“We're focused on a pilot program that would be a state opt in that would allow trucks up to 91,000 pounds with a sixth axle to travel on interstates. We'd be able to haul the same amount of cattle on four trucks instead of five, which we do a lot for our supply chain resiliency.”

Kelsey Kemp with the National Cattleman's Beef Association.