Sponsors
The bill increases flexibility and clarity for agricultural transport—helping farmers, shippers, and supply chains move perishable goods faster—while raising road-safety risks, reducing state control, and creating competitive and administrative challenges for smaller carriers.
Farmers, producers, and rural communities can move a wider range of agricultural goods (including fresh and minimally processed produce, livestock, feed, and animal products) more quickly and year-round under the expanded exemption, reducing spoilage, improving food availability, and lowering waste.
Truck drivers transporting agricultural commodities within the expanded radius gain broader hours-of-service flexibility, allowing more adaptable driving schedules for regional farm-to-market runs.
Carriers and farm shippers benefit from clearer, enumerated exemptions (explicit commodity definitions and coverage), which reduces regulatory uncertainty and administrative compliance costs for hauling agricultural goods.
Motorists, truck drivers, and the public face higher road-safety risks because broader exemptions may extend driving hours and increase fatigue-related crash risk.
State governments lose flexibility to tailor hours-of-service exceptions to local planting and harvest cycles, reducing state control over commercial motor vehicle safety rules.
Small and local carriers may be competitively disadvantaged as broader regional exemptions can favor larger or regional shippers that can restructure routes to rely on the exemption.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Broadens the federal agricultural hauler exception to apply year-round within a 150 air-mile radius and requires DOT to expand the regulatory definition of "agricultural commodity."
Expands a federal exception that lets drivers hauling agricultural commodities and livestock feed operate under relaxed commercial motor vehicle rules. It removes state-determined seasonal limits and instead allows the exception for qualifying hauls within a 150 air-mile radius of the source or destination year-round, and directs the U.S. Department of Transportation to update the regulatory definition of “agricultural commodity” to list specific items (fruits, vegetables, livestock, nonprocessed products, feeds, etc.) within 180 days.
Introduced December 17, 2025 by Debra Fischer · Last progress December 17, 2025