Reuters will hold a hearing on autonomous vehicles at the US House table

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. House panel will hold a hearing next week on self-driving vehicles, even though Congress has stopped the push to accelerate the deployment of autonomous vehicles.

The Home Transport and Infrastructure Commission’s subcommittee on highways and transportation said on Thursday it will hold a hearing on Feb. 2 called “The Road to Automated Vehicles,” which will bring together experts, staff leaders and industry representatives.

John Samuelsen, president of the American Transportation Workers’ Union, will testify, a union spokesman representing more than 150,000 airlines, railroads, transportation and other workers said.

Nat Beuse, head of safety at Aurora Innovation Inc, a car startup safety officer, and representatives of the Teamsters union and the Autonomous Driving Coalition, which was renamed the Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association (AVIA) on Wednesday, will also be present. Like Ford Motor (NYSE 🙂 Co., Elevator Inc. (NASDAQ :), Uber Technologies (NYSE 🙂 Inc. and Alphabet (NASDAQ 🙂 Inc. Waymo LLC.

Last year, Congress rejected efforts by Republican Sen. John Thune to pass legislation to streamline autonomous vehicle regulations.

Thune proposed giving the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration the power to grant exemptions to tens of thousands of autonomous vehicles per manufacturer from safety regulations written with human drivers.

Thune and other lawmakers have been asking for more than five years to gain permission to carry out vehicles that they say could have a huge impact on road safety.

“For automotive vehicle technology to thrive, it’s essential to catch up with regulatory frameworks in private sector innovation,” Thun said in May.

But the effort has been met with strong opposition from unions and groups representing court lawyers.

In May, Greg Regan, chairman of the AFL-CIO’s Department of Transportation, told U.S. lawmakers in another hearing that autonomous vehicles endanger millions of jobs and that self-driving legislation should not apply to commercial trucks.