Joseph Sculley, president of the Motor Transport Association of Connecticut, announced today that he would be leaving his position and the state at the end of the year to take the reins as president of the New Hampshire Motor Transport Association (NHMTA).
“Some of you know that NHMTA is the place that my dad has built into an incredible organization (that is actually an understatement) over the last 33 years,” Sculley said in a social media post. “I am honored that the NHMTA Board has selected me to be their next president.”
Sculley has been president of Connecticut’s trucker’s association over the past seven years and has been vocal in his opposition to various pieces of legislation – both proposed and passed – that he believed would negatively impact trucking and transportation in Connecticut.
Most notably, Sculley and MTAC pushed back against Gov. Ned Lamont’s two-year long initiative to toll Connecticut highways, a plan that shifted from tolling only trucks to then all vehicles and back to trucks at various points.
Although the governor’s tolling plans eventually stalled and disappeared amid public and political opposition, last year the legislature took up a new tax for trucks called the highway use tax or fee, depending on who you ask.
The highway use tax charges trucking companies for miles they drive on Connecticut roads based on the weight of the vehicle starting in 2023.
The tax, expected to bring upwards of $90 million to the state’s Special Transportation Fund was passed mostly along party lines in the General Assembly over Sculley’s warnings that the cost would ultimately be passed onto the consumer when they purchase goods and often doesn’t bring in the revenue lawmakers expect.
This past legislative session, Sculley and MTAC opposed legislation that would tie Connecticut’s emission standards for trucks to California’s emission standards.
Sculley argued that California compliant trucks will cost trucking companies more money and encourage them to continue using older, more polluting trucks. That measure was also passed by the General Assembly.
Sculley says he will help with the process of finding a new president of MTAC, which represents nearly 1,400 trucking companies in Connecticut, according to MTAC’s website, and is part of the national American Trucking Associations’ Federation.
“I am also honored that the MTAC Board and its members have supported me over the last 7 years here,” Sculley said in his statement. “This has been a great job. I will miss the MTAC members, and the great friends we have made in CT.”
