HELP Act

The "Hauling Exemptions for Livestock Protection Act," or HELP Act, proposes to exempt certain commercial motor vehicles and their operators from specific federal transportation regulations. Specifically, it targets vehicles engaged in the transport of livestock, insects, or aquatic animals , providing relief from both hours of service (HOS) requirements and electronic logging device (ELD) mandates . This exemption is designed to cover not only vehicles actively transporting these live animals but also those that are unladen while on a trip to pick up or return from delivering them. The bill broadly defines "livestock" to include traditional farm animals, insects, other commercially raised living animals, and live aquatic animals that have been caught, taken, or harvested. The primary goal is to alleviate regulatory burdens on the specialized industry of live animal transport.