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Show Fuel Waste, Price and Service Problems Cited Competition in Trucking Industry Urged by NAM CHICAGO Some 5 1 million gallons of fuel are wasted every year by the trucking industry solely because of outdated federal regulations, the National Association of Manufacturers said, citing the wasted fuel as one of the many reasons why drastic reform of the regulations governing the trucking industry is needed now. Testifying here before a joint hearing of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation Transpor-tation and the House Committee on Public Works and Transportation, the NAM said the current system of government trucking regulation results re-sults in higher transportation costs to shippers, which are reflected in higher product costs to consumers. Four Reforms Needed Speaking for the NAM, Richard A. Warren, distribution operations manager, Lever Brothers Co., and James P. Carry, NAM acting vice president, government regulation and competition, asked for congressional congres-sional action on four fronts to unsnarl un-snarl the current maze of federal red tape: ( 1 ) removing artificial government govern-ment barriers that prevent new companies from entering and competing com-peting in the trucking industry; (2) encouraging service to small and rural communities; (3) allowing prices to be set competitively in the free market; and (4) eliminating the antitrust immunity that now allows groups of trucking companies to fix prices. Warren said that current Interstate Inter-state Commerce Commission rules restrict competition by making it extremely difficult for new companies com-panies to enter the trucking industry even when ". . . such entry would increase competition, reduce prices, improve service to small communities, save fuel or otherwise other-wise increase efficiency." Waste Cited He said ICC regulations restricting restrict-ing routes often force truckers to drive hundreds of miles out of their way rather than taking the most direct di-rect route, and added: "These restrictions are the cause of a large part of the regulatory nightmare that mandates a systematic system-atic restructuring of the industry." Warren said these requirements, besides wasting some 51 million gallons of fuel each year, increase travel by an estimated 230 million miles yearly at an extra cost of $140 million and the increased risk of traffic deaths and injuries. The NAM spokesman also criticised criti-cised ICC rules which often require a trucker to make the return trip empty. Warren said: "Such rules only cause empty trucks to rattle back and forth across the country burning up fuel and needlessly inflating in-flating overall operating expenses." ex-penses." He charged that in practice the ICC rarely compels truckers to serve small communities and said: "Small truckers would emerge to take up any slack in service (to small towns) which may result from a restructuring of the regulatory environment." en-vironment." End Price Fixing Carty called for an end to price fixing by trucking companies and to the current class rate structure under un-der which commodities are grouped into broad classes. He said it is not unusual for two commodities with essentially the same transportation characteristics to move under widely different, rates simply because be-cause they have been artifically grouped into two different classes. As an example of such arbitrariness. arbitrari-ness. Cany said, it is more expensive expen-sive to ship nylon socks by truck than cotton socks. "The ICC is deciding who can or cannot be a carrier; what they may or may not haul; where they may or may not haul it; and over what routes," said Carty in an NAM position posi-tion paper, and added that ". . .this is ironic in a country that prides itself on its ability to make things happen.' |