Dalilah's Law, named after a 5-year-old girl critically injured by a semi-truck driven by an Indian national who entered the country illegally, passed through the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure with only one small change Wednesday.
Democrats in opposition called the bill "xenophobic" and the "scapegoating" of immigrants.
[Related: Non-domiciled CDL drivers say DOT’s new rule violates their civil rights]
Democrats raised challenges to the need for drivers to fully read and speak English and the wisdom of banning immigrant drivers with legal work authorization.
Republicans disputed those claims, saying English was a "commonsense" requirement for professional drivers and that the country should "only have the best people driving the trucks across this country."
The bill has already been through a few significant alterations on its way through the House, but the version hotly debated by Republican and Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday mostly drew from a few well-established policy proposals.
Dalilah's Law, as amended and passed by the committee, does the following:
- Establishes English Language Proficiency as an out-of-service condition into law (also known as Connor's Law).
- Restricts non-domiciled CDLs to U.S. citizens or green card holders. (In line with but distinct from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's recent Restoring Integrity to the Issuance of Non-Domiciled Commercial Drivers Licenses rule).
- Allows the federal government to dock states up to 12% of highway funding for non-compliance with CDL licensing rules.
- Forces states to be aware of and recognize any time a driver gets disqualified.
- Bans foreign-based dispatch services and the registration of foreign brokers.
- Ends self-certification of CDL training schools and forces them all to recertify within 18 months of the bill's passage.
The debate, split cleanly among party lines, also followed a familiar pattern, with Democrats raising many of the objections legal petitioners raised when a lawsuit in a federal court got FMCSA's previous non-domiciled CDL rulemaking paused.
There were also some questions of process. Congressmen Robert Garcia and Rick Larsen, both Democrats, said the Republican-controlled committee had crafted in an entirely partisan environment, without input from the other side.
Larsen said he only got notice of the legislation a few days prior, and that he and others were "unable to be participants in development of the language" in the bill.
Larsen added that he'd been told by other members of Congress that narrow safety-related bills "have to wait for a broader surface bill" in the form of a larger highway bill. "We have members that have individual bills they’d like to see regarding safety and we don’t want to wait for those bills either."
Democrat Salud Carbajal said he was "extremely disappointed" in the committee for advancing the law without Democrats, and while he supported improved training provider actions as "constructive steps," he objected to the bill overall.
"This bill goes much further than its supporters suggest in ways that are deeply alarming," said Carbajal. "It's punitive rather than practical and does not narrowly target people who lack legal status."
Rather, the bill targets "drivers who are lawfully present who have complied with federal requirements" to get CDLs, he said, adding that losing immigrant truck drivers could drive up prices in the midst of an "affordability crisis."
[Related: Homeland Security explains how 'illegal aliens' get CDLs in the U.S.]
Republicans mostly pointed to President Donald Trump's State of the Union address, which called on Congress to pass Dalilah's law now.
Larsen supported the ELP component of the bill, saying it had "a legitimate nexus to safety," but that the bill "goes further" by removing CDL eligibility from non-citizens, "effectively firing them.
"It's the same penalty as drivers who are caught driving drunk, or who flee the scene of crash, or drivers convicted of killing someone in a crash."
ELP, by comparison, is "inherently subjective," Larsen added, and the U.S. Department of Transportation hasn't "demonstrated a safety risk of those magnitudes" from non-ELP drivers.
[Related: DOT responds to Harjinder Singh bodycam footage: 'Inexplicable lack of enforcement']
Democrat Hank Johnson (D-Georgia) called the legislation an "anti-worker bill that raises barriers" and a "mandate that has nothing to do with safety and everything to do with shutting qualified drivers out."
Instead, he proposed a "targeted approach," ditching much of the bill and instead only keeping "the one part of the test that actually matters."
Johnson suggested an amendment to remove the "blanket English only requirement" for CDL testing and to require drivers to simply show they can understand road signs, rather than fully understanding English.
Republican Congressman Scott Perry called that idea "outrageous."
"Reading doesn’t have anything to do with safety?" he asked.
Republican Congressman Mike Collins, himself a CDL holder and fleet owner, asked some of his own questions: "What happens when you get to a customer and can’t talk to him? Or you don’t know what you’re hauling? Or need help securing a load but can’t converse with people?"
Highway safety requires "a lot more than just reading roadsigns," he said.
Pivoting to CDL school self-certification and the "CDL mills" problem -- FMCSA has already removed more than 7,000 from its school registry over mere months -- Collins said some were teaching "courses in Arabic or Russian.
"I don’t see any Arabic or Russian signs in this country, and I don’t see any BOLs either in Russian or Arabic."
Larsen felt the bill went well beyond safety matters and "veers into immigration policy" by not allowing CDLs for "DACA refugees and asylees and other people entered legally and have a legal status in the U.S."
Republicans did not directly address that point, but Congressman Dusty Johnson did mention "systemic noncompliance by states" when it comes to CDL issuance rules. This mirrors FMCSA's findings in its nationwide audit that found 25 states incorrectly issuing non-domiciled CDLs.
Johnson and Garcia did ultimately go through with putting up an amendment for committee vote to restrict the bill to an ELP test that only included road signs, but it failed.
Larsen offered an amendment asking for non-citizens with legal status to keep CDL eligibility, saying the bill as written "will cause a massive disruption for drivers who are legally here, as well as the communities they serve." On that count too, the nays had it.
The only successful amendment came from Republican Dave Taylor, who suggested naming the ELP portion of the bill "Connor's Law," after Connor Dzion, an 18-year-old who was killed in 2017 in a crash in Northern Florida by a distracted truck driver who was found unable to speak English or read signs warning of upcoming traffic.
Ultimately, the bill passed the committee and heads to a wider vote.
The namesake of Dalilah's Law is pictured here with FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs during her visit to U.S. DOT headquarters recently. "Her strength is the heartbeat of our mission," FMCSA wrote on social media. "Today’s committee vote for Dalilah’s Law is a promise kept to her and to every American on the road."FMCSA via Twitter
Republicans control 218 of 435 Congressional seats, giving them just enough to form a majority. If the bill comes to a vote in the broader House, and the vote goes down strictly along party lines, Republicans should win.
Republicans also control the Senate, but with only 53 of 100 seats. Most legislation needs 60 votes to pass there.
