Congress moves to bar non-English speakers from commercial driving jobs
S. 3013 — Secure Commercial Driver Licensing Act of 2025 · Filed by Tom Cotton (R-AR) · 6 cosponsors · Introduced Oct 16, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill requires all commercial driver's license (CDL) testing—knowledge tests, skills tests, and entry-level training—to be conducted only in English, with no translations or multilingual options. It also mandates that applicants hold a regular driver's license for at least one year before obtaining a CDL, and gives the federal government power to revoke a state's authority to issue non-domiciled CDLs if it fails to comply with the English-only requirement.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core mechanism is a mandate to conduct all CDL testing in English only, eliminating multilingual testing options. The secondary provision (one-year holding period) is a separate licensing requirement.
What the text implies
- The English-only requirement may disproportionately exclude immigrant and non-native English speakers from commercial driving careers, potentially reducing labor supply in trucking and transportation sectors that already face driver shortages.
- No evidence is presented that multilingual testing compromises safety or security; the bill assumes English-only testing is necessary without establishing a public-safety baseline or comparing outcomes across states that currently offer multilingual options.
- The one-year holding period for regular driver's licenses before CDL eligibility may delay workforce entry for younger drivers and immigrants, with unclear safety justification.
- Federal authority to revoke state CDL-issuing power creates a compliance enforcement mechanism that may pressure states to eliminate existing multilingual testing programs even if they have not caused documented problems.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Non-English speakers seeking commercial driving careers face a new barrier to employment and economic mobility, while the public safety justification for English-only testing is unsupported by evidence. The one-year holding period may also delay entry into the trucking workforce without clear safety benefit.
Named in the bill
Department of Transportation (DOT), Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), States and jurisdictions issuing CDLs, Third-party training providers
Where it stands
6 cosponsors: 6 Republicans.
- Oct 16, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Oct 16, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
2 lobbying clients named this bill on 2 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $3,232,237 in lobbying spend. A filing names 46 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 41% of bills with at least one filing.
Tom Cotton, the sponsor, reported $1,292,206 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle. $3,500 of that came from 1 PAC tied to these lobbying clients.
- Fedex Corporation — $2,930,000 on 1 filing
- Owner-operator Independent Drivers Association — $302,237 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 22, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (3,005 characters) on Aug 15, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 22, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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