Trucking Jobs Kansas Looks At Highway Funding There is a general recognition on Capital Hill that Congress is going to have

to come up with dedicated money, as opposed to inancing or general unds, or the ne!t highway program in "ctober #$%&' How to get there, however, is the big (uestion that trucking )obs Kansas is primarily concerned with' *The e!isting approach +to highway unding, is basically broken,- said .ep' Tom /etri, .01is', chairman o the House 2ubcommittee on Highways and Transit' *1e cannot really do a robust bill unless we have the unding to accomplish that,- he said to transportation o icials gathered at the annual meeting o the Coalition or America3s 4ateways and Trade Corridors' The coalition lobbies Congress on behal o state transportation departments, ports and metro planning organi5ations' 6t was instrumental in shaping reight provisions in the current highway program' /etri was echoing a message coming rom both sides o the aisle in Congress as committee leaders prepare to start dra ting a new highway bill' 2o ar, however, the message o need has not been accompanied by mention o a speci ic solution' For political sa ety, the byword is that all options or undraising are on the table' 7ut the Coalition session o ered a new nuance and trucking )obs Kansas thinks it3s worth assessing' F8C2A eases C9L process or states 6n response to petitions rom states and the trucking industry, the Federal 8otor Carrier 2a ety Administration has changed some provisions o its commercial driver3s license rule, which mainly a ect procedures or handling the C9L process' The rule, which has been in e ect since #$%%, sets standards or C9L testing and established the commercial learner3s permit' Among the changes: The agency eased its re(uirement that two license agency employees veri y an applicant3s documents' 6t acknowledged that this is burdensome and said the intent is to make sure that more than one employee participates substantively in the licensing process, rather than to re(uire two employees to separately review each document to remove crashes that obviously are not the carrier3s ault' 2a ety advocates contend that the agency3s current approach is ade(uate' The agency is analy5ing crash accountability and e!pects to release a report this summer' Additional reviews o C2A in general are under way at the 4overnment Accountability " ice and the o ice o the Transportation 9epartment3s 6nspector 4eneral' They are e!pected this all' 6t3s easy to get lost in the clutter o newly proposed and enacted legislation, but it3s clearly evident that bipartisan politics are a ecting the current initiative to help the trucking and transportation industries' Hope ully by assessing this in ormation and

taking trucking )obs Kansas3s approach towards the material, you can better understand the current predicament or .epublicans'