Senator SPONG. Thank you very much.

Senator HANSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator Spong, if I may, I would like to leave with you a statement prepared by Vern Vivion, representing the Wyoming Wool Growers Association and Wyoming Stock Growers Association, which states their position on this important piece of legislation.

Senator SPONG. That will be received and admitted into the record. (The statement referred to follows:)

STATEMENT OF VERN VIVION, REPRESENTING WYOMING WOOL GROWERS ASSOCIATION AND WYOMING STOCK GROWERS ASSOCIATION

My name is Vern Vivion. I am from Rawlins, Wyoming and President of the Wyoming Wool Growers Association.

The Wyoming Wool Growers Association represents the sheepmen of the nation's second largest woolgrowing state and has endorsed Senate Bill S. 2658 and urges favorable consideration by this Committee.

Wyoming has the distinction of having an average of 6.20 head of sheep and lambs per person, far greater than the second ranking State of Montana which has 1.96 head per person. This means that the 1.5 million head of lambs produced annually in Wyoming must be exported out of the state to be utilized.

The Wyoming Stock Growers, representing 2500 ranches in the State of Wyoming, likewise urges your favorable consideration of S. 2658.

Cattle number 1,365,000 in Wyoming and practically all of these animals must be exported to market. There is an ever increasing trend of importing large numbers of cattle for pasturing and then exporting them to market. It is obvious that efficient and economical transportation is important to the livestock industry in Wyoming.

Wyoming has 71,000 miles of highways, the 5th ranking state of the 13 western states, it is only feasible that increases of vehicle weight and width limitations are in order for the Interstate System to efficiently and economically move livestock to their destinations.

James S. St. Clair, Professor, Agricultural Economics Division, University of Wyoming published in June 1965 a mimeo circular entitled Truck Size and Weight Laws as Barriers to the Interstate Movement of Livestock. Professor St. Clair is recognized as an expert in the area of truck transportation.

The following is quoted from the first two paragraphs of Professor St. Clair's publication.

"Regulations governing the sizes and weights of vehicles that may enter a state and travel over its roads have been primarily a matter of state jurisdiction. Something of a hodge-podge of laws has developed resulting from local customs and conditions.

"Automobiles move from state to state with a minimum of formality, and usually a factory-equipped stock automobile legal in one state is legal in another. Not so with trucks. A trucker may find his trip rudely interrupted at any port of entry by violation of that state's weight and length laws. If his vehicles are to move with immunity among 48 states, he must equip himself with trucks which meet the most stringent law of any state. This involves a combination no wider than 8 feet, no more than 50 feet in over-all length, with a semitrailer not exceeding 40 feet. Also, to be safe, gross vehicle weight should not exceed 60,000 lbs., even with a five-axle tractor and semitrailer combination.12 "The literature is replete with some of the more extreme examples of truckers' experiences with weight and length laws. Any conversations with truckers are likely to bring forth further examples of states to be avoided like poison. On occasion, a trucker has been forced to transfer his cargo to another vehicle, pay a fine for being overweight and overlength, then ship his own truck out of the state on a flat car.3

1 Watch Your Weight! State Size and Weight Limits for Trucks and Truck-Trailers, Truck-Trailer Manufacturers Association, Inc., 1413 K Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005, September, 1964. 2 State Motor Carriers Handbook, as of October 1, 1963, compiled by Commerce Clearing House, Chicago 46, Illinois (distributed by Western Highway Institute, 130 Montgomery Street, San Francisco, California).

3 Hillman, J. S. and Rowell, J. D., Barriers to the Interstate Movement of Agricultural Products by Motor Vehicle in the Eleven Western States, Arizona Agr. Exp. Sta. Bul. 248, Tucson, Arizona, June, 1953, P. 38.

"One of the more concise statements on the subject is to be found in a recent publication of the Agricultural Marketing Service:

"Obviously the carrier cannot change the truck's physical dimensions from one state to another as it travels along. So the motor carrier must cope with the problem by conforming to the most restrictive length limit along his route and the most restrictive height limit, and by loading his truck to the lowest maximum weight allowed in the states through which the truck passes. The alternative usually followed is to take a roundabout route in order to stay out of some states altogether. If the truck is over the required measurements, the carrier has no alternative but to stay out of the state. It matters not if all the states along the route are members of a reciprocity agreement; reciprocity generally is not applied to physical specifications-only registration fees. Therefore, because of the restrictions the truck has either to go around the state or load to the lowest maximum permissible on the routes generally traveled, and the result is inefficient utilization of equipment. A third alternative is to unload the excess at the state line and ferry it across the state in another truck but this generally costs more than the other alternative mentioned.*

Please understand that I'm crusading on behalf of "for hire" carriers because only 4.1 per cent of trucks in the West are operator "for hire." Privately owned and operated trucks constitute the remaining 95 per cent plus.

For perhaps the first time, the rate of economic development in our Western states is being stagnated by unreasonable deterrents to a full reasonable use of our highway investments.

This is not an investment of the state or the federal government. It is an investment of the people and all those dependent upon full utilization of our highway resources. The government has no income other than that which it extracts from the people, and in this instance, it is using the income and earnings of those who use the highways. Those earnings are curtailed by the limitations placed on highway use.

The members of the 39th Legislature, Wyoming, 1967, had faith that the Congress of the United States would enact legislation, such as that introduced in the Senate by the Honorable Warren Magnuson, and cosponsored by twenty-one of his distinguished colleagues.

On February 11, 1967 the Wyoming State Legislature enacted legislation that would permit the implementation of new vehicle size and weight limits in the State of Wyoming greater than those prescribed by the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, in the event the Bureau of Public Roads or the United States Congress prescribes or adopts such rules or legislation.

We appreciate the opportunity to appear before the Committee, and again sincerely urge your support of S. 2658.

Senator SPONG. Senator Magnuson. We are very pleased to have you with us this morning.

STATEMENT OF HON. WARREN G. MAGNUSON, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON

Senator MAGNUSON. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the invitation, the opportunity to present my views, and, as you know by now, those of 21 other western colleagues, in bringing to the committee's attention, and asking for a review of, the subject which has greatly affected the development of the West since the passage of the Highway Act of 1956.

Your committee is undoubtedly more familiar than I with the fact that, at the time of the passage of the Federal Highway Act, and the creation of the trust fund designed to put 90 percent of the cost of the interstate in the hands of the States, to be matched by their 10 percent for the construction of the Interstate System, some considerable

Ayre, Josephine, Effects of State and Local Regulations on Interstate Movement of Agricultural Products by Highway, Marketing Research Report No. 496, Transportation and Facilities Research Division, Agricultural Marketing Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, p. 36.

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discussion arose before the committee with relation to what should be the proper measure of sizes and weights of vehicles using the Interstate System.

Your committee, I think properly at the time, not having adequate engineering and factual knowledge of the proper limits for sizes and weights, merely left the States largely where it then found them.

It imposed what might be familiarly termed the "size and weight freeze" in other words, prohibited by law any State from increasing the width and weights of its vehicles beyond the Federal limits until further adequate information could be developed.

The Bureau of Public Roads was then directed, and I think wisely so at the time, or authorized to determine, by means of an elaborate series of tests called the Illinois road test, what should be the proper level.

This so-called freeze caught the States with their then-existing and widely varying separate statutes on sizes and weights. I am informed that it caught 26 States, mainly in the East, with higher single-axle limits than those generally prevailing in the West, and 24 States with higher tandem-axle limits than the general level in many States, including the West.

After the passage of the 1956 act, the Bureau of Public Roads was instructed to proceed with the Illinois road test forthwith, and we in Congress were given to understand that this series of tests would take approximately 3 years. Eight years later, I was approached, as well as other members of the Commerce Committee and I suppose members of this distinguished committee, by the Western Conference of State Governments and those legislators who have the problem of financing, constructing, and maintaining not only the Interstate System but also the extensive State highway systems, to see if we could get the results of this study from the Bureau of Public Roads.

This is 5 years after they were given the time to make the decision. A group of western Senators I suspect a number of them have testified, Mr. Chairman-the 21 listened to a presentation made by the western State legislators who have been trying for years to get the results of this study so that they could adequately plan their construction, operation, and maintenance of highways at a proper level.

Then we signed, together with 21 other Senators, a communication to the Bureau and after months of delay, the results of the study were ultimately released. They are undoubtedly in your hands. They obviously show to me and to others that there is this disparity of which I have previously spoken.

They obviously show, and I think the Bureau must admit, that they have at all times constructed the Interstate System with the same standards through the States with higher limits as they are constructing them through the West with lower limits.

Let me briefly mention, now, the general pattern of western transportation. The distinguished Senator from Wyoming mentioned it. I think it is practically the same in all States.

I have here what I want to leave for the committee, a map (p. 269) of the United States showing in black 25 or more miles from the rail line. You see the whole western area; practically all of it is in black; and also the difference between railroads and highways from 1930 to 1966, showing the movements. Railroads went down 15 percent and trucks when up 330 percent in the West.

So, we do have the shrinking railroad lines brought about by abandonments, mergers, and other fiscal matters.

In addition, our terrain, our mileages, et cetera, are an entirely separate problem which require deviations. Our western legislatures and this Western Conference of Highway Legislators, acting under a succession of most capable chairmen, including, incidentally, Congresswoman Julia Butler Hansen, who handled all the highways in our State legislature and cosponsored a similar bill to mine which she introduced in the House with others; and Senator Collier, chairman of the transportation committee in the California Senate, who, I understand, has previously testified; and then I invited Senator Al Henry of our State senate, who is also on the interim committee handling these matters in my own State legislature.

I think they have testified and many others who have worked diligently in this field. They honestly feel that their States and their areas should, within appropriate engineering standards, have the right to determine the needs of their own transportation industry in all of its phases and aspects as it affects their areas.

Our lumber industry, our construction industry, our livestock industry and many others have written to me with relation to the necessity for a reexamination of this problem and the removal, where necessary, again within the standard of these restrictions. I am informed that Senator Collier produced before your committee the facts and figures with relation to the volume and percentage of intercity and intrastate traffic in the State of California which indicated that 91 percent of all freight revenue by all modes is paid to the common carrier truck system, which only represents 4 percent of the number of trucks that there are in the State of California. I am sure my own State would show comparable statistics.

The need for the type of improvement permitted-and I want to emphasize this but not mandated by S. 2658, I think is eloquently demonstrated by a brief look at what we know about the development of our country in the past and what is expected in the future.

The Transportation Association of America prepared tables showing population and other pertinent statistics for the period 1940 to 1965. At the start of that period, we had a population of 132 million people and for each individual-these are startling figures-we were moving nearly 4,700 intercity ton-miles of freight.

By 1965, with a population of 195 million, and I think it is up to 200 now, but in 1965, the last figures, the per capita of intercity freight hauled increased to 8,500 ton-miles. So, it is thus reasonable to conclude that, as our economy improves and population expands, our need for freight movement will increase at a rate faster than population growth. By projecting these past trends to the end of the century, it would appear that 12,000 intercity ton-miles of freight per individual will become our minimum requirement in the year 2000.