As most industry watchers know, in December, 2011, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration published its new driver hours of service rules, which among other things, reduce total weekly driver hours from 82 to 70 and require a 34-hour rest period between work weeks. The American Trucking Associations found several of the new provisions objectionable and filed suit seeking to overturn the changes.

Will the revised CSA rules go into effect this summer?

The new rules are scheduled to take effect on July 1, 2013.

Oral arguments in the ATA proceedings are scheduled to begin on March 15 of this year; and on January 25, ATA wrote the FMCSA requesting that any new rules not become effective until at least 3 months after the lawsuit is settled. This week, the FMCSA refused to do so, saying that ATA had not demonstrated enough "harm to the industry" to warrant a delay.

While this issue certainly has dragged on long enough, with the FMCSA's refusal to delay implementation, a strong possibility (probably certainty) is that if the new rules are allowed to go into effect on July 1, they will only have to be changed again when the court decision comes down. And of course, depending on the outcome, that decision no doubt will be appealed. Bottom-line, we will continue to be in a state of uncertainty and confusion about drivers' hours of service rules for some time to come.

RQQPAJCBDH8J -- Technorati confirmation code. For several years now, Congress has known that transportation funding was going to expire on March 31, 2012; and finally, on March 13, the Senate did pass a two-year $109 million funding of U.S. highways and transit systems.

The bill probably was not all it should have been, but it wasn't a bad effort. The president of the American Trucking Associations said, this "is an example of how things should work in Washington."

Naturally, the House had its own version, but they could not even agree on that, thus passing nothing.

Finally, on March 30, President Obama signed a bill extending the current legislation for another 90 days which eliminated the possibility of all funding being cut off. This was the ninth time that the current legislation, passed in 2009, has been extended. So, here we go again................ This is to me, an example of how things really work in Washington -- slowly, inefficiently, and myopic.

There is nothing we need worse in this country than improved infrastructure, but our Congressional leaders cannot seem to bite the bullet.

• Image by rjs1322
• See also: INFOGRAPHIC: More broken bridges than Golden Arches