Twenty-three states, all led by Republican governors, have joined the case of Lujan vs. FMCSA to support the CDL restrictions the federal government finalized earlier this year.

In a new step ahead of oral arguments scheduled for Sept. 15 before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, an amici curiae brief was filed last week by Florida, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia.

“The States have an interest in ensuring that federal safety regulations adequately protect drivers on their roads from threats posed by large commercial vehicles driven by unqualified commercial drivers,” the brief said in explaining their interest. “Without proper federal protections, States will be forced to spend more of their own time, budgets, and personnel to keep their travelers safe.”

Support on both sides

The lawsuit filed with driver Jorge Rivera Lujan also has the AFL-CIO and the American Federation of Teachers as plaintiffs. In addition, numerous states led by Democratic governors are listed as amicus curiae for Lujan, ranging from Arizona to Washington.

The rule finalized in February significantly limits the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s ability to allow states to issue commercial driver’s licenses to foreign-domiciled residents. FMCSA said the foreign-born residents who can still be issued a CDL are those with H-2A, H-2B or E-2 status. As the states said in their brief, “because applicants for these statuses undergo careful screening by multiple federal agencies, any applicant’s unsafe driving history comes to light. Then States know who is too dangerous to possess a CDL.”

The D.C. Circuit has already denied a request to stay FMCSA’s implementation of the rule.

The arguments made by the Republican-led states in the relatively short filing closely match the points raised by supporters of the rule since it was first proposed last year, underscoring how the case has become a broader test of how much responsibility belongs to Washington versus the states when it comes to commercial driver licensing and highway safety enforcement.

A list of crashes

A central example in the states’ argument is the crash involving Harjinder Singh, who was not in the U.S. legally and was driving on a California-issued license. Singh made a U-turn on a Florida highway, causing a crash that killed three people in a passenger car. The case received extensive news coverage and has become a key example for supporters of the FMCSA rule.

The brief then cites similar fatal crashes in California, Tennessee, Indiana and Oregon.

“As these tragedies show, the final rule didn’t arise from a vacuum,” the brief said. “It was the federal government’s response to a string of tragic yet entirely preventable accidents caused by insufficient protection and regulation over illegal immigrants and CDLs. The final rule should stand.”

According to the brief, FMCSA needed to step in to address what the states view as a gap in state enforcement standards intended to keep unsafe drivers off the road.

“Recent Supreme Court decisions…have made it clear that States can only do so much to address this problem alone,” the brief said. “Because the Final Rule cracks down on the unauthorized CDLs which threaten the States’ people and roads, (the states in the brief) support the rule.”