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HOS Arguments HeardThe United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will hear oral argument in the consolidated challenges to the 2005 hours-of-service ("HOS") rules today.
The Public Citizen (challenging the rules' protection of driver health; the 11 hour daily drive time limit; and 34-hour restart) and OOIDA (challenging the split sleeper berth rules) cases had been consolidated earlier and will be heard together. Each challenger will get 10 minutes and the Federal Motor Carrier Administration will get 20 minutes to respond. The argument will be before Circuit Court Judges Ginsburg, Garland, and Henderson. None of these Judges sat on the panel that overturned the 2003 HOS rules. Judges Ginsburg and Garland are considered particularly expert on administrative law issues and previously sat on a panel that ruled in favor of the FMCSA in a challenge to its interpretation of HOS supporting document rules. In that case, the Judges recognized the strong deference owed agencies in challenges to their regulations and resolved ambiguities in favor of the agency.
Decisions are ordinarily issued by the D.C. Circuit 3-6 months after argument.
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