South Carolina Motorcycle Rights Association

It’s been a busy week for motorcycle freedoms in the Nation’s Capitol, what with the 2016 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) appropriations bill on the house floor. THUD is one of the “must pass” spending bills that Congress must pass each year in order to keep the federal government chugging along. Because of this, the bill is often laden with extras that would not ordinarily pass on their own. You may remember last June when this same bill had a provision that would allow the Department of Transportation (US DOT) to contact individual states and lobby for regulatory changes at the state level that the given state may or may not desire.

In 1998, the transportation bill (TEA-21) contained a provision that made it illegal for anyone from the US DOT to lobby any state or local government for any reason. Since that time, the US DOT has tried over and over again to defeat the ban. Last year there was as an amendment to the spending bill that attempted to strike down that provision, and almost one year to the day later, the same amendment was again included in this year’s spending bill.

Thanks to the hard work from some of the most dependable members of Congress, we were able to strike the amendment again. No doubt you have by now seen the release, but in case not, we owe a debt of gratitude to Congressmen Tim Walberg, Jim Sensenbrenner and Reid Ribble who all really went to the mat for us once again. Their amendment to strike the language was put to a full floor vote, and we won!

I am always a little shocked at how partisan appropriations bills become. One of the main reasons this amendment received any opposition was because of party line voting. One chairman likes something, so his party votes for it; another chairman doesn’t like something, so his party then votes against it. It has nothing to do with the merit
of the legislation—it’s just party politics, and all parties do it.

The DOT lobby ban is about so much more than motorcycles. It may have started as a
helmet law issue, but just think about how many other freedoms have been preserved along the way. Keeping the US DOT out of your state capitol has unknowingly saved countless freedoms. We cannot even know what might of been had the US DOT not been banished from state legislatures. I think motorcyclists have made America a country with more freedom, so pat yourself and your fellow politically minded motorcyclists on the back.

Note: Last week the wrap-up mentioned the number of barrels of ethanol as millions: it should have read billions. Also, we put forth a theory that the EPA regulation could result in less ethanol in gasoline: that theory has been disproven.

Some interesting reading:
http://tribune.com.pk/story/895371/motorcyclists-wary-of-decision-to-mandate-trackers-in-vehicles/

http://www.wired.com/2015/06/yes-california-let-motorcycles-ride-cars/

Countdown: Highway bill funding expires in 50 days. Presidential election
is in 516 days.