RIDING FREE FROM DC–MRF Report

Your Weekly Biker Bulletin from Inside the Beltway

Your Motorcycle Riders Foundation team in Washington, D.C. is pleased to provide our members with the latest information and updates on issues that impact the freedom and safety of American street motorcyclists. Count on your MRF to keep you informed about a range of matters that are critical to the advancement of motorcycling and its associated lifestyle. Published weekly when the U.S. Congress is in session.

Last month President-elect Joe Biden selected former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a onetime Democratic primary rival, to lead the Transportation Department.

Mr. Buttigieg dropped out of the race in March and endorsed Mr. Biden along with other moderate Democrats. Leading the Transportation Department, Mr. Buttigieg is expected to play a prominent role in the incoming Biden administration’s push to rebuild the nation’s roads and bridges.

Mr. Biden campaigned on a $2 trillion plan to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure, much of it related to transportation. Mr. Buttigieg would take over a department whose most critical functions are setting transportation regulations and distributing vast sums of money, mostly to states to fund their respective highway, road and transit systems. If confirmed by the Senate, he will begin his tenure, as pressure mounts for the Biden administration and Congress to reach a deal on paying for infrastructure spending. Congress faces a September deadline to reauthorize federal funding for highways, transit, rail, and safety programs. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle point to infrastructure spending as a way to stimulate the coronavirus-ravaged economy.

On January 3rd the 117th Congress was sworn in and all bills and resolutions not agreed to from 2019-2020 must be reintroduced. The MRF is disappointed that, despite over 130 bipartisan cosponsors, House leadership failed to bring this the motorcyclist profiling resolution, H. Res. 255, to the floor for a vote.

The issue of motorcyclist profiling continues to gain traction on Capitol Hill and the growth in cosponsors over the last 5-years is a testament to the work of individual MRF members and state motorcycle rights organizations. The first version of the resolution introduced during the 114th Congress had only 18 cosponsors. Two years later the version before the 115th Congress had 37 cosponsors while this version had 139 cosponsors. Additionally, the Highway Reauthorization bill that passed the House in July of 2020 included language that focused on motorcyclists profiling.

Despite this setback our champions on Capitol Hill remain in the fight. The leadership of the House Motorcycle Caucus has already reach out to the MRF about plans to reintroduce the profiling resolution in early 2021. The MRF remains committed to seeing the House of Representatives do what the Senate did in 2018, go on the record about the need to end motorcyclists profiling!