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By Sean McNally, Senior Reporter

This story appears in the Sept. 22 print edition of Transport Topics.

When members of American Trucking Associations gather next month in New Orleans, the main topic of discussion will be the 2009 federal highway bill, ATA President Bill Graves said.

“Even though everybody acknowledges we’ve been through a very rough patch economically — and certainly fuel prices have been on everyone’s mind — we’ve got to look beyond some of these near-term issues . . . and now start preparing for what most consider the most important legislative battle that we’ll face,” Graves told Transport Topics.

ATA’s annual Management Conference & Exhibition is scheduled for Oct. 4-7.

Graves said discussions will include where the national network of roads should be ex-panded and improved, how much to spend on the goals and what sort of vehicles can travel the routes.

While other key discussions will include the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2010 engine emissions rules and the upcoming presidential election, Graves said there was a key reason highway reauthorization would dominate.

The current highway bill “didn’t accomplish the things that we need for our industry going forward,” he said. “There is a lot at stake in the 2009 debate on reauthorization, and we intend to be much more focused and committed in our effort, and a lot of that will come out of this meeting.”

In gearing up for the 2009 debate over highway funds, ATA has been building what Graves called “a three-legged stool” to base its arguments on.

The first leg — establishing the importance and essentiality of trucking — was set in place with the federation’s “Good Stuff. Trucks Bring It” campaign.

Last year, ATA put the second leg in place by backing a series of steps to reduce trucking’s carbon footprint, and trying to establish that the industry can operate in a sustainable manner (10-29, p. 1).

Graves said in the year since it was first announced, the rollout of the sustainability policy has “gone great,” though it is not without challenges.

“We certainly have made a very positive impact in the way many people think about our industry . . . and the commitments we made in the area of sustainability.”

The final piece, Graves said, will be a package of policies designed to demonstrate how the industry intends to continue tackling the issue of safety.

While ATA still needs to endorse a yet-to-be-released report from the safety task force that was convened at last year’s MC&E, Graves said association leaders will also have “a full discussion” about what they want to accomplish in the highway bill.

When all of the pieces are put together, Graves said he thinks ATA has “a pretty compelling case” to take to Congress.

“There will be some specificity in what it is we’d like to see accomplished,” he said, adding that financing would be one of the most contentious issues.

“I think our position on financing is simply going to be: If we can have some assurances that many of these things [we’re looking for] will be included . . . then our industry is committed to being at the table to finance what it takes to make this all possible,” Graves said.

Among those key items are accountability in spending, reductions in the number of earmarks requested by members of Congress and an emphasis on freight movement.

“It will be an emphasis on the [freight] bottlenecks . . . making sure funds are specifically targeted at that kind of congestion relief,” he said, adding the association is likely to support “opening the door” with a pilot program testing truck-only lanes.

“We don’t expect the Congress to embrace something that has never been tried before, but we need to at least take a look at those kinds of things to see how successful they might be,” Graves said.

Larger, heavier trucks will also be part of ATA’s reauthorization package.

“We certainly want some discussion and debate about how more productive vehicles fit into this whole equation given the concerns we have about fuel consumption and greenhouse gases,” Graves said.

As part of the federation’s sustainability report, ATA has said allowing larger trucks on U.S. highways will reduce the amount of fuel used and carbon emitted by the industry.

There are also “some safety initiatives included in the reauthorization,” Graves said, including improved drug and alcohol testing rules, although ATA hopes that may move separately before the highway bill does.