Roy Blunt: “I thank my good friend from Nevada for yielding a few minutes to me. He is going to speak on an amendment which requires…”

“I thank my good friend from Nevada for yielding a few minutes to me. He is going to speak on an amendment which requires the Senate to pass a budget I am supportive of and support his efforts to do that, but I wish to speak in support of this great explanation of what the committee did as we just heard from the Senator from Maine. The committee debated this. We looked at the facts as Senator Collins has repeated. That full debate, that full discussion in the committee ultimately had a bipartisan vote of 21 to 9. This was something the committee thought about. I think the committee reached the right decision, and I was glad to be part of the 21 votes that said this should be part of the underlying bill. There is a wide consensus that further study is needed. That consensus goes even to the administration. As the Senator from Maine has already pointed out, the ``restart rule'' allows drivers to restart their weekly on-duty time calculations by taking at least 34 hours off duty. In July of 2013, new restrictions were placed on the restart provision, and the changes, frankly, have had unintended consequences and unintended effects for drivers, for their families, for customers in the supply line, and even other users of the road. The new restrictions state that a restart period has to include two back-to-back periods in the middle of the night--from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. I am usually up not too long after 5 a.m. I am almost never up between 1 a.m.…”