What trucking can still get from a lame-duck Congress before Jan. 3

Every bill in Congress has an expiration date. For the 119th Congress, it’s noon on Jan. 3, 2027. Anything that hasn’t passed both chambers and reached the president by then dies, and the next Congress starts over with new bill numbers, new committee chairs and new math.

After Tuesday, that math changed. Democrats won control of both the House and the Senate. Rep. Rick Larsen of Washington, the ranking Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, is expected to take the gavel from retiring Chairman Sam Graves. Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington is in line to replace Ted Cruz as chair of Senate Commerce, the committee that oversees FMCSA on the Senate side. Rep. David Rouzer of North Carolina, who chairs the Highways and Transit Subcommittee and wrote Dalilah’s Law, was in a race that was still uncalled as of Nov. 4. Even if he wins, he loses the subcommittee gavel.

In September, I counted 79 trucking bills introduced across the last two Congresses. Three became law. Of the rest, 69 never left committee. The biggest enforcement change Congress made in that window, ordering DOT to treat a failed English proficiency check as an out-of-service violation, didn’t come from any of the 79. It came from a paragraph in the spending law that ended the shutdown in February.

That’s the lesson for the next 60 days. Stand-alone trucking bills don’t move. Bills that have to pass do.

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