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Twenty state AGs fight Duffy on mission to make sure unqualified drivers are not steering your child’s bus

December 8, 2025 | | Print Article

Nearly half of the states are in panic mode for a frightening reason, and it involves the people in charge of protecting your children.

Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy has made it clear that the standards for receiving a Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) are about to go way up as the DOT aims to crack down on the facilities providing these licenses. In a press release from December 1, the department announced that it will be removing “nearly 3,000 commercial driver’s license (CDL) training providers from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) Training Provider Registry (TPR) for failing to equip trainees with the Trump Administration’s standards of readiness.”

“Another 4,500 training providers were placed on notice due to potential noncompliance,” it continues.

While this should have everyone who drives on a public road breathing a sigh of relief, 20 states are coming together to protest the new standards. Why? Because it will impact those people in charge of driving school buses, as well as public transportation.

“These unlawful actions have harmed and will continue to harm our States. Public and private employers – including State and local governments – depend on commercial drivers to drive the buses that bring children to school, to run the mass transit systems that transport people to work, to operate the construction vehicles that maintain and repair public roads, to drive the trucks that transport food and goods to businesses, and to provide many other indispensable services,” the document reads. “The Interim Final Rule (IFR) will stop virtually all non-domiciled commercial drivers from performing these essential functions, raising costs and disrupting economic and other important activity across the nation. Tens of thousands of drivers will also face losing their licenses and their livelihoods. And the IFR will impose obligations directly on the States themselves, forcing them to overhaul their licensing systems and comply with needlessly burdensome requirements. These disruptions came without time for individuals, their families, their employers, or State and local governments to prepare, due to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA’s) violation of the advance-consultation and notice-and-comment requirements that Congress mandated to prevent exactly this sort of rule by agency fiat.”

Duffy called out the previous administration for allowing “unqualified drivers” on the roads.

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“This administration is cracking down on every link in the illegal trucking chain. Under Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, bad actors were able to game the system and let unqualified drivers flood our roadways. Their negligence endangered every family on America’s roadways, and it ends today. Under President Trump, we are reigning in illegal and reckless practices that let poorly trained drivers get behind the wheel of semi-trucks and school buses,” Duffy said.

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