GRAIN VALLEY, Mo. – It appears that the battle over a federal mandate that interstate trucks and buses convert to electronic logging devises by the end of this year is headed for the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, which lost its latest district court appeal in the case, has vowed to appeal to the nation’s highest court.
Jim Johnston, president and CEO of OOIDA, said that the association is preparing for the next phase of the challenge with an appeal to the Supreme Court, but will also continue to pursue the issue in Congress.
Republican lawmakers have been talking since the election of President Donald Trump about rolling back regulations. However, Congress called for the ELD mandate in 2012 with broad Republican support, so it is unclear where they stand on the issue now.
“It’s clear now that we have to pull out all the stops to convince lawmakers and the new Trump administration of the need to set aside the ELD mandate,” Johnston said.
The association announced its next move last month after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit rejected its request for a rehearing in the case.
OOIDA sued federal regulators last year, asking the appeals court to overturn the rule, which is scheduled to take effect in December.
The association argued that requiring the use of ELDs violates drivers’ Fourth Amendment right to privacy and protections against illegal search and seizure because it effectively calls for their locations to be tracked in real time.
The association argued that employers could abuse the oversight and harass drivers.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which issued the ELD rule, responded to the suit by saying, in essence, that the ends – highway safety — justify the means.
A three-judge panel of the appeals court ruled against OOIDA, saying the ELD rule addresses the harassment issue by expressly limiting the scope of information that ELDs should track.
The judges also agreed with FMCSA’s contention that trucking is considered a dangerous and a “pervasively regulated industry” under which the right against unreasonable search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment doesn’t fully apply.
OOIDA then filed a petition asking the full appeals court to rehear the case. That petition was rejected in January.
This is the second time OOIDA has sued the federal government over an ELD mandate. The first time, in 2011, the association successfully challenged the mandate by arguing that it didn’t take potential driver harassment into account.
Todd Spencer, executive vice president of OOIDA, told a trucking publication that at that time, the judges had been very concerned about all of the arguments raised, not just harassment.
“In our previous case on this issue, the court ruled based on just one of our arguments –harassment,” Spencer said. “This time, we have again raised several issues that should be taken seriously and we hope to have a full review by the court.”
