A small provision in the year-old $286 billion highway bill that exempts trucks weighing less than 10,000 pounds from Department of Transportation regulations is causing potential problems for small-truck operations.

That’s a change from most DOT trucking regulations such as the Commercial Driver’s License, which usually kick in when vehicles exceed 26,000 pounds.

The Labor Department recently ruled its rules would apply to trucks under 10,000 pounds. That means the Labor Department’s Fair Labor Standards Act would apply.

Mostly these regulations apply to UPS and Federal Express, which traditionally operate step vans in this under-10,000-pound segment.

Trucking interests first viewed the under-10,000-pound rule as a small oversight that could be easily corrected in a technical amendment. But union interests are taking firm stands in the other direction.

“What was originally an error is now the proverbial political hot potato,” said Timothy P. Lynch, senior vice president of federal relations and strategic planning for the American Trucking Associations. “We have one opportunity in a lame-duck session to fix this.”

Lynch said the Teamsters union is pushing to keep the Labor Department rules in effect, making it more difficult to get the rule changed to the trucking industry’s benefit.

The importance of Labor Department's oversight to shippers is that it may raise their costs, because carriers may be required to pay overtime under the Labor Department's regulations that might not have been required under DOT oversight.

Regarding the ongoing saga of the three iterations of the original hours of service, Lynch said a final regulation is not expected until mid-2007. There have been three legal challenges in the past five years. Public Citizen, the Teamsters union and safety advocates won a lawsuit over the original rule, which was changed by the DOT to cover changes in the split-sleeper berth provision.

But Public Citizen et al has sued again.The new rule must consider the overall impact on the physical condition of the 7 million truck drivers affected by the ruling. That was the essence of the first court ruling on the HOS case, causing DOT to go back to its drawing board.

“There is no clear guidance to the DOT as to what they are supposed to look at regarding the physical condition of the driver,” Lynch said.

ATA is seeking to give DOT guidance on the impact of future rulings on the health and physical condition of drivers, Lynch said.

“We are guardedly optimistic that judges will see it the same way,” Lynch said at the annual membership meeting of the North American Transportation Employee Relations Association (NATERA).

On another issue, Lynch said ATA’s stance favoring pilot projects for electronic on-board recorders is conditional that trucking companies will control ownership and accessibility of the data recorded by the so-called “black boxes.” But he questioned whether that stance would be upheld in courts, should black boxes be required.