In a move that has sparked controversy across state lines, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean P. Duffy has announced the cancellation of 17,000 commercial driver's licenses in California. According to the Department of Transportation, these licenses were illegitimately issued to non-domiciled drivers, a discovery made during an audit by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).
Secretary Duffy, in a recent statement, claimed that the audit had unveiled not just administrative errors but a potential hazard—California had to, abruptly, admit the issuance of these licenses. "After weeks of claiming they did nothing wrong, Gavin Newsom and California have been caught red-handed. Now that we've exposed their lies, 17,000 illegally issued trucking licenses are being revoked," the Secretary asserted. The recipients of the licenses have been warned that their credentials will now fail to meet federal requirements and are slated to expire within two months.
The Secretary's announcements come amid a series of punitive actions the Department of Transportation has unleashed upon California. Just last month, the state lost access to over $40 million in federal transportation funds due to non-compliance with English Language Proficiency (ELP) standards for commercial drivers. This financial blow was a follow-up to prior warnings, including an insistence on the state's adoption and enforcement of ELP requirements, which, as reported in July, the California Highway Patrol stated it had no plans to honor.
In May, tightening the screws further, Duffy signed an order to bolster ELP enforcement. This new guideline mandates that commercial vehicle operators who fail to demonstrably meet the English-language proficiency requirements will be placed out of service. Duffy's actions align with his commitment to strictly uphold and enforce regulations within the commercial driving sector.
FMCSA's nationwide audit has shed light on the broader dysfunction within California's CDL program for non-domiciled drivers, revealing "systemic policy, procedural, and programming errors," per the information from the Department of Transportation. The audit findings indicated that a significant portion of the records sampled did not comply with federal guidelines. Notably, licenses were issued that outlasted a foreign national's work permit—an egregious oversight by the department.
With the revocation of the CDLs, the state's DMV is now required to furnish a complete audit of all its non-domiciled CDLs. This measure is necessary for the FMCSA to validate the revocation of each illegally issued license and ensure that California puts in place a robust framework to prevent such lapses in the future.
