Year in Review: CDL oversight intensifies

(The Center Square) – Oversight of commercial driver’s licensing programs drew increased scrutiny across the nation in 2025, punctuated in North Carolina by 78 removed from a federal registry.

Two of at least eight bills in Congress, each in the House of Representatives, are authored by North Carolina Republican Reps. Pat Harrigan and David Rouzer. A proposed rule change from the U.S. Department of Transportation in September has been temporarily halted by a federal appeals court in the District of Columbia.

The rule change would be immediate, and the congressional action would have a chance at being more sustaining through changing presidential administrations.

An eastern North Carolina Baptist church, the Head Start program and a community college are among the entities with involuntary closures of CDL training programs in North Carolina, research from TCS shows. Of the 3,015 training providers for commercial driver’s licenses removed from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Training Provider Registry, 61 in North Carolina were involuntary and 1...