California’s $40 Million Highway Fund Cut: Feds Demand Truck Safety Reform

The Department of Transportation, led by Secretary Sean Duffy, has taken decisive action to protect American roads by withholding roughly $40 million in federal highway funds from California after finding the state failed to enforce new English proficiency and licensing rules for commercial truck drivers. This move follows a federal probe into a deadly Florida crash that exposed glaring holes in how some states verify whether truckers can read road signs and communicate with law enforcement. Washington cannot allow states to pick and choose which federal safety rules they obey while families pay the price on our highways.

This is not abstract bureaucratic nitpicking; a tragic crash in Florida left multiple Americans dead and raised urgent questions about how a driver with a commercial license managed to be behind the wheel. Federal investigators and the DOT concluded the crash underscored failures by some states to apply the stricter standards that took effect after the administration tightened rules earlier this year. For citizens who drive on our interstates with their children in the car, those failures are unforgivable and demand accountability.

Secretary Duffy’s team found that California conducted roughly 34,000 inspections since the rule change but pulled only one driver out of service for English-language deficiencies — a shockingly lax enforcement record that reads like a policy of willful blindness. Even worse, inspectors apparently allowed drivers flagged for violations in other states to continue operating within California, a practice that flies in the face of common-sense safety enforcement. If a state refuses to act to keep dangerous drivers off the road, federal dollars that pay for safety programs should be on the line until the abuses stop.

Beyond English proficiency, the DOT has also flagged California’s handling of commercial driver licenses issued to non-domiciled individuals and warned the state could lose an additional significant chunk of funding — roughly $160 million — unless it fixes systemic problems. The federal emergency rule expressly required states to pause issuance, identify noncompliant licenses, and reissue only when standards are met; according to the FMCSA, California failed to fully implement those steps. This is about the rule of law and the basic obligation of states to follow federal safety standards, not politics.

Governor Newsom’s predictable excuses about lower crash rates in California do not absolve his administration from following federal rules designed to keep people alive. When ideology trumps enforcement, ordinary Americans suffer — and that is unacceptable. Law-abiding taxpayers and hardworking truckers who follow the rules deserve a federal government that insists states enforce safety standards rather than shielding reckless policy choices.

Congress, state leaders, and the public must now back the DOT’s demand for accountability and push California to stop treating laws as optional. This is a moment to stand with victims, to restore commonsense enforcement, and to reject sanctuary-style policies that put political signaling ahead of public safety. If protecting our families and highways is unpalatable to California’s leadership, then the federal government should keep turning the funding spigot until compliance is achieved.