Safe Routes Act of 2025

This bill lets certain logging trucks use interstate highways even if they are heavier than normal federal limits, as long as they meet their state’s existing weight rules. It applies only to trucks hauling raw wood products (like logs, pulpwood, biomass, or wood chips) and only within 150 air miles from where the load starts to a storage or processing site. The U.S. Department of Transportation must grant this waiver, but only up to the state’s legal weight tolerance that was already in place on the day the law takes effect .

In everyday terms, this could shift some heavy logging traffic from smaller roads to interstates, which may improve safety and travel times for logging trucks, while still respecting each state’s weight rules.

• Who is affected: logging truck drivers, logging companies, and communities along common logging routes.
• What changes: heavier logging trucks that meet state limits can use interstates within a 150–air–mile range from the origin to a facility .
• Key guardrail: the waiver only goes up to the state’s existing legal weight tolerance at the time the law is enacted.