The first half of my week was dominated by the Transportation Research Board, or TRB. For those of you that are not familiar with TRB, it is a global organization that conducts studies, gathers information, and acts as a huge clearing house for any and everything that has to do with transportation and any research conducted. They have an annual meeting every January in D.C. The Board has many committees dedicated to very specific areas of transportation. I am a full member of the Motorcycle and Moped subcommittee, or as they call it ANF30.
The committee meetings cover a large swath of things relating to motorcycles, including crash stats, naturalistic study, automated vehicles, rider impairment, high risk behaviors like stunting, rider gear, conspicuity, hazard perception, awareness, training, human factors/cultural influence, motorcycle traffic flow/lane splitting, and international issues. As you can see, we deal with a wide variety of issues and those change every year based on new research.
It makes for an interesting meeting when the europeans that are allowed to lane split in their country, gasp at the fact that we are trying to repeal helmet laws across our country. Keep in mind the committee is made up of riders from around the world. We had attendance from every continent, except Antarctica!
I have also been making the rounds visiting the 74 new members of the House and Senate. A high point this week was my meeting with Joni Ernst, the newest Senator from Iowa. She’s a conservative Republican, which is odd, because she is replacing one of the most liberal and crazy Senators of all time. She was chosen this week to deliver the Republican response to this year's State of the Union. She rides a Harley Davidson, likes to shoot guns, believes in smaller government and less taxes, and she’s the first female elected to the Senate from Iowa. She is not on any of the main committees that we deal with, but she should be a strong ally for us.
Something else of interest: the ethanol bill in the House that we are supporting, H.R. 21, has the distinction of being the very first bill introduced into the U.S. House for the 114th Congress. How cool is that? Having a low bill number doesn’t prioritize the legislation necessarily but it can add some serious cache. The Speaker reserves bill numbers 1-20 for his own personal projects he deems important. For instance when Pelosi was speaker she gave the bailout bill H.R. 1. What was Boehner’s H.R. 1 last Congress? To overhaul the IRS. This gives us a full Congress to get this bill done! Please bring it up in your newsletters and meetings.
I am off this weekend to attend the Virginia Coalition of Motorcyclists legislative weekend in Richmond, and next weekend I will be in Harrisburg , Pennsylvania for their legislative weekend.