WASHINGTON — U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) Sec. Sean Duffy is speaking out on some of the biggest issues the trucking industry is facing, including working with state DOTs on sting operations.
Duffy was accompanied by Derek Barrs, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration administrator, at the press conference.
“There has been a lot of conversation recently about what’s happening in American trucking,” Duffy said. “A lot of coverage on Americans who’ve lost their lives because of truckers who I would argue are doing some crazy things on American roadways. So, I want to talk about how do we get here, where we are and where we’re going.”
According to Duffy, during the Biden administration, 12 to 20 million people entered America illegally.
“Many of those people thought, well, a great way for me to make a living is I should drive truck,” Duffy said. “And so they went out and they got commercial driver’s licenses and got behind a big rig and drove across this country. How did they do that is what I want to talk about. How did this come to pass?”
English Language Proficiency
“Well, first off, the prior administration didn’t enforce English proficiency rules,” Duffy said. “There was no consequence if you couldn’t speak the language consistent with our rules. There was no penalty for that.”
CDL Mills
“Foreigners were able to get driver’s licenses, but many of our states issued those driver’s licenses illegally,” Duffy said. “In California, 20,000 foreign driver’s licenses were issued unlawfully. 50% of the driver’s licenses issued in New York were issued unlawfully. 20% in the state of Illinois. And so one of the problems that we’ve seen is just because you’re a foreigner, that doesn’t mean that you can’t drive a big rig, you can’t drive a truck. Well, what’s happened that we’ve had so many unskilled, unqualified, untrained drivers on American roads. What’s happened is many many of these potential drivers would go to uh a commercial driving school, right?”
Duffy singled out former USDOT Sec. Pete Buttigieg saying that under his watch, he and USDOT decided there “shouldn’t be any rigorous requirements to certify that a school is well-qualified to train drivers. He said the schools across America, they could actually self-certify. So, any of you here in the room could say, ‘I’m going to start a commercial driver’s license school. I’m going to certify that I’m well-qualified and I can train students in America.'”
“Self-certification in the last administration has brought us CDL mills,” Duffy said, “And what we found through some of our investigation, and we are not done yet, some of these commercial drivers licensed schools, don’t even have a curriculum or others that do have a curriculum, it’s only a partial curriculum. They don’t have trucks or buses to train any of their students. So, what this actually is is a CDL mill where you can pay $800 or $1,000 and you don’t get any training and they just certify that you have gone through the schooling requirements to then go and be tested. So, that’s how we get individuals who have no training.”
Third-Party Testing
Duffy used his daughter as a practical example.
“If you go through a school that doesn’t give you any training, well, how do you still get a driver’s license,” Duffy said. How does that come to pass? My daughter’s 15 and she’s getting her driver’s license in Wisconsin. She goes through a school, but then the state of Wisconsin actually gives her the written test and the state of Wisconsin will give her a behind the wheels test and the DMV of Wisconsin will certify that she’s qualified. That happens in Wisconsin.”
CDL Holders with No Training
“But in a number of states, they’ve outsourced the testing to a third-party tester,” Duffy said. “You can go
through to a fake school, no training, and then in some of these states, you go to a third-party tester and the third party tester is participating in the scam because they’re not adequately testing these individuals who have gone through the fake school. We don’t run the third-party testing institutions in the states. The states are the ones who say either we’ll test at the DMV or we’ll outsource this to a third party tester. But our rules require them to audit all of these third-party testers to do covert operations to make sure they’re adequately testing the students that are doing the skills test and the knowledge test. What we’re finding is many of these third party testers in states aren’t adequately going through the process and testing the students. So, you go to a fake school, you go to a fake third third party tester, and you go in with a piece of paper to the DMV, and they will take your picture, and they will give you a commercial driver’s license, and you basically have no skills to get behind the wheel of what is potentially a very dangerous weapon.”
How USDOT is Changing Qualifications
“What have we done at DOT and [FMCSA], well, we’ve increased the penalties for those drivers that are not proficient in English,” Duffy said. “We’ll take their vehicle out of service. The last administration, if you didn’t speak English, the penalty was nothing. Get back behind the wheel and keep driving. We’ve done a nationwide audit exposing the states for giving foreigners these CDLs unlawfully.”
Non-Domiciled CDLs
We’ve issued new rules making it much stricter for someone to get a foreigner or a non-domiciled commercial driver’s license,” Duffy said. “So, think bout this for a second. You’re born in America. You’re an American citizen and you want to become a commercial driver. Well, what the DMV will do is say, ‘Well, who are you? I want to look at your driving record. How many infractions do you have? Do you have an OWI or a DWI? Do you have a criminal
record? We’ll do a background check on you to see what kind of person you are and whether you’re qualified to actually get an American commercial driver’s license.'”
Duffy claimed that under the previous administration, those questions were not asked of people unless they were American citizens.
“You’re an American, you have one standard that’s way up here and if you’ve come across the border unlawfully
under Joe Biden’s term, the standard is way down here,” Duffy said. “Unacceptable. What we’re going to do is increase those standards and make them all equal, increasing the requirements for a foreigner to get a commercial driver’s license.”
Shuttering CDL Mills and Sting Operations
“We have shut down 7,000 of the CDL mills, the commercial driver school mills,” Duffy said. “7,000 of those schools have been taken out of service. We’re not allowing them to self-certify to tell us that they have a curriculum and a and a driving instruction unit that can train our students well enough to go uh take the commercial driver’s license test. We’ve also set up a sting operation. We have a number of states that are partnering with us where our local law
enforcement along with motor carriers. They’re going out and basically stopping our 18-wheelers, our big rigs, and in those stops, verifying their licenses, but also that they are proficient in the English language. That’s what we’ve done thus far.
Future Plans
“As a side note, you would have never thought that trucking is so complicated and it gets to be really complicated very quickly,” Duffy said. “And I think the problem is it has just been allowed to maybe rot,” Duffy said. “I don’t know if that’s the right word, but it’s been allowed to rot and no one’s paid attention to it for decades. And once you start to pay attention, you see that all these bad things have been happening. And the consequence of that is that Americans get hurt. When we get on the road, we should expect that we should be safe and that those who drive those 80,000lb big rigs that they are they are well trained, they are well-qualified, and they’re going to be safe, but they’re going to keep me and my family safe as well. That has not been the case.”
States Should Revoke CDLs for ELP Deficiency
“So, what do we do from here,” Duffy said. “If you can’t proficiently speak English right now, we’ll take you out of the rig. But what we’re going to do in the future is ask states to disqualify your license. Now, I would love if I had the
power to revoke someone who can’t speak English per our rules. I’d love to be able to revoke their license. I can’t.
That goes to the states. So, we’re asking states to disqualify those who can’t speak the language consistent with
our rules. In the state of California, you can take the drivers test, the skills test, and the proficiency test. You can take it in 20 different languages. What we’re doing is implementing a rule that’ll say there’s one language in
which you can take your test. It’s English only. You take the test in English, you can’t speak English, you
can’t read English, you’re not going to do well in the test because every test is going to be required to be
given in English.”
Eliminating Multiple DOT Numbers a.k.a Chameleon Carriers
“We’re going to have way more stringent regulations for our carriers, the companies. We want to know that who you say you are, you actually are,” Duffy said. “Because right now, it’s a very loose set of requirements. One
individual can get a hundred different DOT numbers. We want to make sure that the DOT number is connected to an actual individual…in essence, what we’re doing is shutting down the chameleon carriers. One bad actor = continues to bad act as they switch from one DOT number to the next. We’re going to put an end to that.”
Fraud in Electronic Logging Devices
“We’re going to crack down on illegal electronic logging devices,” Duffy said. “We don’t have a driver who’s fraudulently driving 20 hours a day. That’s not safe. We see a lot of fraud in this space as well. The work here is is is just beginning. It has been a very thoughtful process. I would love if if I had the ability to change all the rules because we had all the power in the federal government. We don’t. We partner with our states and so the
DOT has a role and having smart good rules to protect the American people.”
States Should Not Act Partisan
“I also need the states to say this is this is not partisan,” Duffy said. “This is not politics that we’re playing here. We can have a debate about whether Joe Biden should have had an open border or Donald Trump, which I would agree with, shut down and secured the border. That’s a different debate. The debate really is, do you want well-trained, well-qualified drivers behind the wheel of a big rig driving on American roads? It’s very simple. I think the answer is every single American, no matter what your political stripes are, that’s exactly what you want. That’s what you’d expect from the federal government and the state government.
“To a greater extent, I think we need our states to say, listen, we can be good partners. You know, I told you Gavin Newsom, who I’ve criticized oftentimes from this podium. They’re starting to enforce the English proficiency requirements. That’s a really good thing. Kudos to Gavin Newsom. I’m proud of him. Now, he has not done as much work as he needs to on the non-domicile CDLs. He’s not going back and and revoking the licenses that were unlawfully issued. But we can partner as one government, different parties, but to protect the American people. We’re going to continue to provide information. We’re going to continue to ask our states to partner with us. In the end, if we do this together, Americans for Americans, we are going to have much safer roads. And that is our mission. Protect lives, safer roads [and] more qualified individuals.
Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA)
“OOIDA and the truckers across America that we represent applaud Secretary Duffy and administrator Barrs for taking decisive action to make our roads safer and our industry more professional,” said Todd Spencer, OOIDA president. “For too long, individuals have entered the trucking workforce under the false narrative of a nationwide ‘driver shortage’ without receiving the training necessary to safely operate an 80,000-pound commercial vehicle. For years, chameleon carriers, CDL mills, and weak English language proficiency enforcement have allowed unqualified drivers to slip through the cracks compromising safety as well as facilitating fraud. Rather than lowering standards, the Trump Administration is strengthening training, licensing, and qualification protocols to ensure properly trained and vetted drivers operate on our nation’s highways. That is a win for public safety and for the professional truckers who take pride in this industry.”
Dana Guthrie is an award-winning journalist who has been featured in multiple newspapers, books and magazines across the globe. She is currently based in the Atlanta, Georgia, area.
