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Courtesy of AFIA:

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) announced in a stakeholders briefing with National Agricultural Organizations that it is granting a 90-day waiver from the Electronic Logging Device (ELD) rule that was set to go into effect December 17, 2017. The reason for the 90-day waiver is to give the agency time to consider a couple of exemption requests as well as clarify the 150-air mile radius exemption for agricultural commodities. While livestock feed is not considered an agricultural commodity by definition and does not qualify for the 90-day waiver, it does meet the definition of farm supplies and qualifies under the 150-air mile radius hours of service exemption. FMCSA expects to officially announce the 90-day waiver within the next three weeks.

There has been some confusion surrounding the 150-air mile radius hours of service exemption. Some of the confusion surrounding the exemption has been on what hours are actually exempt from the hours of service rules (loaded miles, empty miles, loading and unloading time, etc.). The FMCSA communicated in the briefing their intentions to release a guidance document on the 150-air mile radius exemption within the next three weeks. It is expected that the guidance document will clarify that all hours for trips inside the 150-air mile radius will qualify under the exemption. Drivers delivering livestock feed should only be required to log hours of service if they go beyond the 150-air mile radius. If you don’t make deliveries outside of the 150-air mile radius, you would not be required to install ELDs.