ELD agriculture exemption could be tweaked soon, Perdue says

Commercial shippers of agricultural products may soon get a break on federally mandated hours-of-service regulations monitored by electronic logging devices (ELD).

Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue said April 9 that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been working with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration for more than year on tweaks to the agricultural exemption rule. Perdue said the FMCSA has proposed some rule changes, although he didn’t specify as to exactly what changes could be coming.

“They have some proposed rules coming that will better define agriculture products and agriculture exemptions,” Perdue said. “Hopefully, by this summer we can have some resolution of some of those hours of service issues over the electronic logging device issues.”

The agriculture exemption states that drivers transporting livestock, bees, horses, fish used for food and other agricultural commodities can turn off their ELD within 150 air miles of the source. For example, a driver heading to pick up perishable goods can turn off his or her logging device upon passing the 150-mile mark and then wouldn’t have to turn it back on getting 150 miles away from the source. The ag exemption does not apply when a driver is operating solely within a 150-mile radius.

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