After an unsuccessful attempt to persuade Congress to include state meal and rest break pre-emption language in a recently passed Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization law, the American Trucking Associations’ (ATA) moved its focus on the issue from Congress to the USDOT. In late September 2018, ATA filed a 13-page pre-emption petition with FMCSA seeking a favorable executive branch decision to pre-empt state meal and rest break laws that some in the industry believe are in conflict with federal hours of service rules. Within just a few days of receiving the ATA petition, FMCSA published a “Notice of Petition…Request for Comments” on the ATA petition. FMCSA is accepting public comments on the ATA petition until October 29, 2018 (docket number FMCSA-2018-0304). As of mid-October, less than 30 comments have been filed in the FMCSA docket.