It’s a standoff.
Days before 17,000 California non-domiciled CDLs were set to be revoked, the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles announced that it is granting a 60-day extension.
Soon after, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy fired back, saying that California was not allowed to grant an extension and that the state will lose about $160 million in funding if the non-domiciled CDLs aren’t canceled by Jan. 5.
Duffy specifically called out California Gov. Gavin Newsom on the social media platform X.
“Gavin Newsom is lying,” Duffy wrote. “The deadline to revoke illegally issued, unvetted foreign trucker licenses is still January 5. California does NOT have an “extension” to keep breaking the law and putting Americans at risk on the roads. Miss the deadline, Gavin, and the @USDOT will act – including cutting nearly $160 million in federal funding.”
Gavin Newsom is lying. The deadline to revoke illegally issued, unvetted foreign trucker licenses is still January 5.
California does NOT have an “extension” to keep breaking the law and putting Americans at risk on the roads.
Miss the deadline, Gavin, and the @USDOT will act —…
— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) December 31, 2025
The most recent punches in the ongoing brawl between California and the DOT came about a week after the Sikh Coalition filed a class-action lawsuit that challenged the cancellation of 17,000 CDLs on Jan. 5 and another 2,700 in mid-February. In the complaint against the California DMV, the Sikh Coalition called the cancellation “unlawful” and claimed that CDLs were being revoked over “minor paperwork discrepancies.”
On Tuesday, Dec. 30, the California DMV announced that it won’t cancel the 17,000 CDLs until March 6.
“Commercial drivers are an important part of our economy – our supply chains don’t move, and our communities don’t stay connected without them,” California DMV Director Steve Gordon said. “We are hopeful that our collaboration with the federal government will give FMCSA confidence in our updated processes to allow California to promptly resume issuance of non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses.”
The DMV added that the 60-day extension “allows the parties to find a solution that permits drivers to remain working to serve our communities.” Affected drivers will soon receive letters about the extension, the DMV said.
However, it is unclear who will blink first now that the DOT has threatened to pull $160 million in federal funding from the state.
The DOT has been working for months to pull back the non-domiciled CDL process in the United States. In late September, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration issued an emergency interim final rule that would pull non-domiciled CDLs from nearly 200,000 individuals. The agency said the “broken” system allowed thousands of unqualified people to receive CDLs. However, a federal lawsuit has put the rule’s effective date on hold, and FMCSA is now reviewing thousands of comments before it unveils a final rule.
California has argued that its CDL holders are involved in fatal crashes at a rate “far below the national average.” LL
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