Trucking news and briefs for Wednesday, March 9, 2022:
After arriving at a speedway in Hagerstown, Maryland, this past Saturday, the "People's Convoy" dispatched itself on two laps around the I-495 Capitol Beltway in the Washington, D.C. region on Sunday, in a single-lane run that stretched for miles. On Monday, after the rush hour, it did just a single lap around the Beltway, but occupying two lanes. Yesterday, Tuesday, March 8, the convoy and affiliated groups ended two weeks since it departed Adelanto, California, with another another two-lane-occupying lap. That and a purported $1.6 million raised through the less-than-one-year-young American Foundation for Civil Liberties and Freedom political fund-raising group provided backdrop to a high-profile meeting and subsequent press conference with Senators Ted Cruz (R, Texas) and Ron Johnson (R, Wisconsin) yesterday morning. (Representatives from the convoy reportedly met with Republican House members in the afternoon as well.)
The meeting in the Capitol building followed Senate Republicans' move last week to take advantage of Democratic Senator absences and Senate rules to push through a resolution that would, if passed by the House and signed by the President, do part of what People's Convoy co-organizer Brian Brase said the group wants: End the national emergency declaration around the COVID-19 pandemic.
[Related: Will the national emergency declaration's COVID hours waiver extend again?]
Brase and others in the group also called for an end to all COVID-related mask and/or vaccine mandates in the United States, whether directed at the local, state or federal level. At the last, Brase said, "we’re losing well-qualified soldiers" over the military vaccine requirement. "You’ve got health care workers who’ve spent their entire life becoming the best – now they’re losing their jobs because they believe it’s wrong to be forced into vaccination."
Cruz offered support to the move against the emergency declaration, describing the convoy as men and women simply "standing up for freedom. It ought to be your decision how to live your life [and] how you treat your body."
Yet the Senator offered a word of caution to convoy organizers during the closed-door session, which was nonetheless broadcast via livestream, noting that they would need support across the aisle from members of the Democratic Party, not to mention the President, who has already threatened to veto the emergency declaration-ending bill if it reaches his desk. "Actions by Congress to end these authorities abruptly and prematurely would be a reckless and costly mistake," the White House said in a statement.
