WASHINGTON — A trio of overlapping bills introduced in the U.S. Senate exposes lawmakers’ strategy to boost the chances that English-only commercial driver’s license testing for truck drivers ultimately becomes the law.
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The latest bill is the Secure Commercial Driver Licensing Act, introduced on Thursday by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.
In addition to requiring all testing related to the issuance or renewal of a CDL be conducted only in English, it gives the Transportation Secretary the power to suspend or revoke a state’s authority to issue non-domiciled CDLs if they aren’t compliant with federal standards. It would also require holding a standard driver’s license for one year before obtaining a CDL.
Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., introduced companion legislation in the House.
“For everyone’s safety, you must be able to read and understand English road signs when operating a commercial vehicle. Our bill would require commercial drivers to pass the test given in English,” Cotton said in a press release.
Cotton and Barr’s legislation, which was co-sponsored by Sens. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., and Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., essentially bundles two high-priority, restrictive CDL measures introduced separately by Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan. in June and in September by Sen. Ashley Moody, R-Fla., into one comprehensive bill – along with a new one-year waiting period – to serve as a main legislative vehicle.
If this latest comprehensive bill stalls due to partisan gridlock over its immigration provisions embedded in the non-domiciled CDL requirement, the measure can be stripped out and attached as an amendment to Marshall’s cleaner bill, which mandates that the CDL knowledge test be conducted only in English.
The Senate’s multi-bill strategy on CDL English proficiency testing joins with related efforts by lawmakers in the House and Senate to keep truck drivers who are not proficient in English off the road.
Connor’s Law, introduced in the House in May and in the Senate earlier this week, requires individuals to be able to “read and speak the English language sufficiently to converse with the general public, understand highway traffic signs and signals in the English language, respond to official inquiries, and make entries on reports and records,” in order to get a commercial driver’s license.
It also codifies updated truck-driver out-of-service guidelines for English proficiency violators put in place earlier this year by the Trump administration,
Absent so far from any of the bills is support from Democrats, which will be needed for passage into law – unless the provisions can be attached to “must-pass” legislation, such as the highway bill reauthorization or a continuing resolution.
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