California, long the outlier among states for its refusal to enforce English language regs and completely unique ideas about CDL requirements, tried to reinstate thousands of non-domiciled CDLs this month before the federal Department of Transportation shut them down once again.
Since September, DOT has done its best to shut down the issuance of non-domiciled CDLs, mostly through an emergency rulemaking that sought to tighten eligibility requirements for non-citizens and ultimately push 194,000 out of truck driving.
But that same September rulemaking push included a special callout for California, which DOT said had issued 65,000 non-domiciled CDLs. DOT, since September, has demanded California revoke some 20,000 non-domiciled CDLs that remained valid longer than a driver's work authorization.
[Related: California refuses to revoke 20,000 wrongly issued CDLs in note to DOT]
California responded in October saying that it did not interpret federal regulations to prohibit CDLs that last longer than work authorizations, nor did it interpret federal rules as barring Mexican or Canadian citizens from holding U.S. CDLs.
However, since then California has been working with DOT behind closed doors to come into compliance.
At a December press conference where DOT Secretary Sean Duffy announced New York as the "worst offender" in non-domiciled CDL missteps, he mentioned that California had finally come around.
"17,000 CDLs were pulled and we're grateful for that," said Duffy. "When we’ve held money over California’s head they have been willing to at least tell us they’re working on coming into compliance."
But California seems to have jumped the gun.
On December 10, California Department of Motor Vehicles Director Steve Gordon sent a letter to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration saying the state had met all conditions required for compliance with federal regs governing the issuance of non-domiciled CDLs.
"DMV will resume issuing non-domiciled CLPs and CDLs on December 17," the letter noted, as California believed it had satisfied all of FMCSA's requirements.
The letter said California identified "approximately 20,100 non-domiciled CDLs having expiration dates exceeding the driver’s legal presence," and that on November 6, California DMV "issued notices to approximately 17,400 of these drivers, explaining that DMV would cancel their licenses in 60 days if they could not present evidence of lawful presence meeting or exceeding the expiration date of their CDLs."
DMV said it would also issue notices to the remaining 2,700 non-domiciled CDL holders that they faced revocation by December 15.
But on December 16, FMCSA told California it may not resume issuing non-domiciled CDLs. On December 18, California DMV met with FMCSA to discuss next steps to achieve compliance.
FMCSA and DOT haven't commented publicly about progress with California getting back into issuing non-domiciled CDLs, but California's DMV provided the below statement:
“Commercial drivers are an important part of our economy — our supply chains don’t move and our communities don’t stay connected without them. DMV stands ready to resume issuing commercial driver’s licenses, including corrected licenses to eligible drivers. Given we are in compliance with federal regulations and state law, this delay by the federal government not only hurts our trucking industry, but it also leaves eligible drivers in the cold without any resolution during this holiday season. We are hopeful the federal government will do the right thing and allow California to reissue these commercial driver’s licenses promptly.”
California -- as well as New York, Pennsylvania, and other sates who had their non-domiciled CDL issuance paused by DOT order -- assert that the federal government grants the applicants work authorization.
The Department of Homeland Security, which approves work authorizations, has recently imposed $500 fees on those work authorizations and cut the authorization period from five years to 18 months.
California is currently suing DOT over its attempts to withhold $40 million in truck-safety-enforcement funding over the state's lack of ELP enforcement, but Duffy on December 12 said DOT hadn't actually withheld any funding as the state works to come into compliance.
