Transportation Reauthorization 2026 Already in Motion

The trend in Washington over the last several Congresses has been that meaningful legislation rarely passes on its own. Of course, a resolution naming a Post Office or a rifle shot bill addressing a local, non-controversial issue will win approval on its own. However, more substantively, national policy issues tend to move and become law as part of comprehensive legislation. Tax is a good example. Hundreds of tax bills are introduced each Congress, but they are typically stuck in neutral unless a broader legislative vehicle emerges, including a tax title. The same is true for energy policy and other issues, including transportation. Next year, the current highway bill is up for reauthorization. This underlying statute funds and authorizes our country’s surface transportation programs. This must-pass legislative vehicle presents an opportunity to finally make some progress on issues of importance to the hardwood industry, including truck weight reform.

As you know, we have advocated for many years to enact reasonable gross vehicle weight reform on our nation’s highways. The arbitrary 80,000-pound weight limit for five-axle rigs forces trucks to take fewer safe roads to their ultimate destination. For example, a logging truck in Georgia weighing out at 84,000 pounds may travel legally all day, every day over state roads, but is forbidden from accessing the interstate highway system. This means this truck must travel on narrower two-lane roads traversing small towns, crosswalks, and railroad crossings when a more direct route may be available on the interstate.

Thankfully, two Hardwood Federation-supported measures to address this problem have been introduced in this Congress. One is the Safe Routes Act (H.R. 2166). Rep. Tony Wied (R-WI) reintroduced this bill, allowing trucks traveling at the maximum gross vehicle weight on state roads to access that state’s portion of the interstate for short distances. Georgia is not the only state that allows heavier rigs on its state-controlled highways. Several states have an 80,000-pound weight restriction but allow “tolerances” to exceed that weight for trucks carrying agricultural commodities, including timber.

The other bill, a close cousin to Safe Routes, is titled the FRESH Act or Freight Restriction Elimination for Safer Hauling Act of 2025 and is sponsored by Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA). The bill would allow trucks hauling “perishable commodities” to access the interstate highway system at weights over 80,000 pounds. The term “covered commodity” includes raw logs, forest products, pulp wood, chips, and biomass.

Representatives Collins and Wied sit on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, the panel that will hold the pen on writing a new highway bill. The Hardwood Federation team will work with our partners in the forestry and forest products value chain to include either of these measures in the final surface transportation reauthorization bill as it is forged in the coming months.

In addition to these two measures, a coalition of large manufacturers in the food, beverage, pulp, and paper sectors is promoting legislation that would authorize a 10-state pilot program to allow 91,000-pound rigs equipped with a sixth axle on the interstate highways. This bill relieves shippers whose rigs weigh out before they “cube” out. In many instances, rigs leave distribution centers half or three-quarters full because they have hit the 80,000-pound limit. This inefficiency results in more truck trips, traffic, and air pollution. Variations of this bill have been under consideration for several years. The farthest it has made in the legislative process was a House floor vote in 2015.

Unfortunately, the Class 1 railroads have and will continue to oppose all these measures to make truck transportation safer and more efficient. We are hopeful, however, that these bills will be recognized by House and Senate leaders as modest, practical reforms and will move to include them in the highway bill rewrite when it is finalized next year. It’s never too early to engage and offer input on these big-picture, multi-year pieces of legislation. The Hardwood Federation will continue to work closely with our Congressional allies to effect positive change through the reauthorization process.

By DANA COLE, Executive Director of the Hardwood Federation