Request By:
Major Larry Fentress
Kentucky State Police Legal Office
State Office Building
Frankfort Kentucky 40601
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; Joseph R. Johnson, Assistant Attorney General
In your letter to the Attorney General dated June 19, 1981, you stated that the 1980 Kentucky General Assembly amended KRS 189.222 which authorizes the Secretary of Transportation to increase height, length and weight limits on designated highways. The amendment added a provision, which is numbered as Section (3), and states:
(3) Vehicles engaged exclusively in the transportation of farm products and registered under KRS 186.050(4)(b) shall be excluded from the axle weight provisions and subject only to total weight provisions.
The Department of Transportation has informed the Bureau of State Police that the Federal Highway Administration has notified the Department of Transportation that the exclusion in KRS 189.222(3) would jeopardize federal aid funds in that the failure to enforce the established axle weight limits on federal aid roads in this Commonwealth without regard to the use or licensing of the vehicle would constitute a violation of 23 USC § 127. The funding which the Department is in jeopardy of losing amounts to millions of dollars per annum.
It is the opinion of the Department of Transportation that KRS 189.222, including the recently added provision in Section (3) regarding vehicles transporting farm products, should be construed in a manner that none of the provisions contained therein would jeopardize the allotment or qualification for federal aid funds of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The Department of Transportation has therefore requested the Bureau of State Police to enforce the established axle weight limits on federal aid roads without regard to the provision contained in Section (3) excluding vehicles engaged exclusively in the transportation of farm products.
It has been held that the court has a duty to construe statutes literally if it is reasonably possible to do so.
Barrett v. Stephany, Ky., 510 S.W.2d 524 (1974). Express statutory power carries with it all powers essential to its exercise,
Commonwealth ex rel. Breckinridge v. Nunn, Ky., 452 S.W.2d 381 (1970) and where no ambiguity exists, a statute is to be interpreted according to the intent of the authors which intent is gleaned from what the authors actually said.
Clark v. Clark, Ky. App., 601 S.W.2d 614 (1980).
As the Kentucky Court of Appeals stated in
Fiscal Court Com'rs, Etc. v. Jefferson, Etc., Ky. App., 614 S.W.2d 954, 957 (1981).
The cardinal rule of statutory construction is that the intention of the legislature should be ascertained and given effect.
Fiscal Court of Jefferson County v. Louisville, Ky., 559 S.W.2d 478 (1977). In determining legislative intent, we may not look beyond the language of the statute unless the legislative intent is not discernible from the language used.
Princess Manufacturing Company v. Jarrell, Ky., 465 S.W.2d 45 (1971). However, a court may not speculate as to what the legislature intended.
Kentucky Ass'n, Etc. v. Jefferson Cty. Medical Soc., Ky., 549 S.W.2d 817 (1977).
This office is of the opinion that because the legislature specifically excluded from the axle weight provisions vehicles engaged exclusively in the transportation of farm products only, the Kentucky State Police cannot enforce axle weight provisions as against such vehicles because of KRS 189.222(3). The will and intent of the legislature must control and since the legislative intent is explicitly and unambiguously expressed in the exemption for farm vehicles, any potential problems with the law must be addressed to the General Assembly.