ARLINGTON, VA. — “Unbelievable,” said American Trucking Associations’ (ATA) President and CEO Bill Graves in response to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) rejecting a request to delay implementation of the new, and highly-debated, hours-of-service rule.

The rule, ATA said, is expecting to cost the trucking industry $320 million between now and July, when it takes effect. Most of that cost will be in the time it takes to train drivers on the new rule, reprogramming software and other transition costs.

“And, this cost does not include costs to shippers, receivers and others in the supply chain. In addition, State enforcement agencies must spend taxpayer money to adapt to the rule changes,” ATA said in a statement.

“If the court agrees, in whole or in part, with ATA that the rule changes at issue must be rejected, those expenditures will have been irrecoverably squandered,” ATA stressed.

The request for a delay was treated by the FMCSA as though the ATA were asking for a court injunction forcing the agency to delay, the Associations said. General Counsel for the ATA, Prasad Sharma, said that rather than “deal in good faith” with ATA’s request for a delay, FMCSA “hid behind an irrelevant, legalistic analysis.”

“So rather than giving ATA’s request its natural reading, FMCSA contrived an analysis under an inapplicable test to critique the sufficiency of ATA’s request,” Sharma wrote in a letter to the agency.

“Despite a record of adverse decisions in past hours-of-service litigation,” Sharma continued, “FMCSA is willing to risk wasting significant training resources — some of it taxpayer money used to train both agency staff and the state enforcement community.”

“At a time of rising diesel prices, increased equipment and labor costs, the decision by the head of FMCSA to reject a reasonable request for a brief delay in enforcing this rule is unbelievable,” Graves commented.

More as it develops.