Killer-truck fix hits roadblock in Trump’s quest to cut rules
WASHINGTON — Years of pleas from parents whose son was killed by a speeding tractor-trailer, buy-in from some truckers and the promise of fewer highway deaths persuaded U.S. officials in September to propose requiring speed-limiting devices on all large rigs.
All it took was a few minutes for President Donald Trump to sign an order putting that regulation and hundreds of others in limbo.
“This ought to be the biggest slam dunk you ever thought of,” said Steve Owings, whose son Cullum died in 2002. The latest hurdle for the truck-speed proposal is “very, very disconcerting,” Owings said.
Trump brought a reformer’s zeal against regulations into the White House, vowing to block what he calls unnecessary rules across the government that stifle business and slow hiring. The order he signed in January requires agencies to kill two existing rules for each new one and caps the costs of new regulations — even ones backed by industry, lawmakers and the public.
At the Department of Transportation, for example, it has brought a near halt to the regulatory process, forcing delays or rethinking of rules brokered through yearslong efforts at compromise, enjoying at least some industry support and projected to create significant benefits.
The speed-limiting devices for trucks — already mandated in most developed nations — would save hundreds of lives, lower fuel use and provide as much as $6.5 billion in benefits per year, the department estimated.
If a rule like the truck speed restriction is to get finalized, agencies have to find a way to save billions of dollars by cutting other regulations. The president has cast the effort as a way to free business of unnecessary burdens.
It’s a “simplistic morality play” to say regulations are either inherently harmful to business interests or are purely for the benefit of the public, said Jerry Ellig, a senior research fellow at the George Mason University’s Mercatus Center who specializes in the issue.
“Most regulations benefit some businesses and harm other businesses,” he said.
Under the umbrella of transportation agencies regulating aviation, automobiles, rail and highways, of the 43 proposed rules subject to review under Trump’s order, 34 — or 79 percent — are designed to improve safety, according to a Bloomberg review.