Thousands of truck driving jobs have received a temporary reprieve after a federal court agreed to the Trump administration’s request to pause proceedings in the lawsuit challenging new CDL restrictions.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit granted an abeyance, effectively extending the court’s earlier order from last month that blocked the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s interim final rule (IFR). The IFR sought to impose stricter requirements on non-domiciled commercial driver’s license and commercial learner’s permit holders.
FMCSA requested the abeyance, an action the lawsuit’s petitioners did not oppose, to allow time for the agency to review the roughly 8,000 public comments submitted on the IFR. The agency may revise the rule before issuing a final version.
This pause offers temporary stability for the trucking industry. FMCSA had projected that nearly 200,000 trucking jobs could be lost under the new rule. With the appeals court’s stay issued in November, drivers affected by the IFR continue to operate under the less restrictive standards that were in place before September 29.
Although FMCSA is still permitted to work toward implementing the new restrictions, state driver’s licensing agencies are generally allowed to resume issuing and renewing non-domiciled CDLs during the abeyance.
The legal challenge to the IFR was filed in October by Public Citizen Litigation Group, the American Federation of Teachers, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees on behalf of truck driver Jorge Rivera Lujan, a veteran CDL holder.
According to the lawsuit, Lujan has lived in the United States since he was two years old and has maintained a commercial driver’s license for more than ten years. He alleges that he was unable to renew his CDL on September 30 as a direct result of the IFR.
Depending on the outcome of FMCSA’s final rule, Lujan, and potentially thousands of other drivers, could face the loss of his trucking livelihood, despite having met all prior legal and licensing requirements.
