On February 12, Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY) introduced the Safety and Accountability in Freight Enforcement Act. This is the first federal legislation specifically targeting chameleon carriers, and it dropped ten days after WFAA and WTSP aired “Blind Spots,” a joint investigation documenting how problem trucking companies shut down after deadly crashes and resurface under new names.

One day after that investigation aired, a semi crossed the center line in Jay County, Indiana, killing four Amish men. The driver, a foreign national, was detained by ICE. FMCSA is now investigating whether the carrier was part of a chameleon network. According to Hageman’s office, the network behind that carrier had accumulated 2,993 inspections, 1,552 violations, 439 out-of-service orders, and 91 crashes across its various identities.

What the SAFE Act does: Requires a nationwide study on the scope and impact of chameleon carriers. Directs FMCSA to develop and test an advanced automation tool to flag suspicious registration applications before unsafe operators receive new DOT numbers. Strengthens coordination between federal and state agencies to identify shared ownership, recycled equipment, and other red flags. Creates an appeals process for carriers denied registration.

The support coalition tells you everything. ATA, OOIDA, the Truck Safety Coalition, the Truckload Carriers Association, and the Wyoming Trucking Association all endorsed it on day one. When ATA and OOIDA agree on something, pay attention. ATA’s Alex Rosen explicitly framed it as a candidate for the highway bill: “We look forward to building on this progress by working with Rep. Hageman and her colleagues to attach this commonsense policy to the next Highway Bill.”

My take: I’ve been investigating chameleon carrier networks for years. The SAFE Act is a solid foundation, but a study and an automation tool aren’t enforcement. The bill needs teeth, and the highway bill is where those teeth get added. This is the starting gun, not the finish line. Watch for a Senate companion and for amendments that add actual penalties for reincarnated carriers.

The SELF DRIVE Act of 2026 (Discussion draft)

Reps. Bob Latta (R-OH) and Debbie Dingell (D-MI) released a discussion draft of the Safely Ensuring Lives Future Deployment and Research in Vehicle Evolution Act in January. Unlike Latta’s previous AV bills in 2017 and 2021, this one includes heavy trucks. The draft would preempt state-level AV restrictions, allow commercial operations during pilot testing, and permit “cab-less” truck designs without manually operated controls. It would also establish a National Automated Vehicle Safety Data Repository.

This is a sleeper bill with enormous implications. If it gets folded into the highway bill, autonomous trucking gets its federal regulatory framework. Industry analysts note it could end up attached to the reauthorization package Congress is assembling this year.

The highway bill: September 30 changes everything

Every five to six years, Congress passes a surface transportation authorization that funds and directs federal highway, transit, and safety programs. The current one, the IIJA, expires September 30, 2026, one month before midterm elections that could reshuffle Congress entirely.

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Sam Graves (R-MO) has signaled a “back to basics” approach, prioritizing core infrastructure while reducing spending. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, chaired by Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), kicked off hearings in July 2025, emphasizing safety and streamlined federal processes.

For trucking, the highway bill is the mother ship. It’s where CDL reform, Clearinghouse improvements, third-party testing oversight, chameleon carrier enforcement, and insurance minimum reviews all have a realistic path to becoming law. Standalone bills that haven’t moved out of subcommittee by spring are almost certainly being positioned as riders for the reauthorization package.

The Truckload Carriers Association is already pushing for hair follicle testing, automatic emergency braking mandates, CDL access for younger drivers, truck parking funding, and the elimination of the federal excise tax to be included. The Highway Trust Fund is projected to face a $40 billion annual shortfall starting in FY2027, and TCA has proposed rebranding the fuel tax as a Gallons-Based User Fee at 52.9 cents per gallon of diesel, more than double the current 24.4-cent rate, which hasn’t changed since 1993.

If your bill isn’t on the highway bill train, it’s standing on the platform.

The original 23: What moved, what didn’t

Bills That Got a Boost From Executive Action

Connor’s law (HR 3608 / S 2991)

Status: Still in committee. No floor movement since the introduction.

Duffy’s enforcement actions have done something that Connor’s Law was designed to force. The Clearinghouse is getting more aggressive. The CDL school crackdown (550 schools flagged, 1,400 stings conducted) and Operation SafeDRIVE are operationalizing the cross-referencing intent of this bill through executive action. Connor’s Law still matters because it would codify the requirement, making it survive any future administration change. Expect it to be included in the highway bill markup. Named-victim legislation has political momentum that procedural reform doesn’t.

Non-domicile CDL Integrity Act (HR 5688)

Status: Subcommittee on Highways and Transit. No movement.

This bill may now be partially moot. FMCSA published the final rule on non-domiciled CDLs on February 13, 2026, with an effective date of March 16. The rule restricts CDL issuance to non-immigrants with H-2A, H-2B, and E-2 visas, requires that the CDL and Employment Authorization Document expiration dates match, and gives the FMCSA authority to withhold federal highway funds from non-compliant states. California’s $160 million and Illinois’s $128.6 million are already at risk. The legislative version would lock this into statute, but the regulatory win already landed.

SAFE Drivers Act (HR 5800)

Status: Referred to committee. No movement.

This bill would require standardized English proficiency testing for all CDL applicants. FMCSA’s February 20 announcement mandating English-only CDL testing effectively achieves the bill’s objective through rulemaking. The legislation remains valuable as a statutory backstop, but the regulatory action moved faster than Congress. The Iowa Motor Truck Association is now pushing state-level ELP legislation as additional reinforcement.

Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse Public Safety Improvement Act (HR 4320)

Status: In committee. No movement.

FMCSA has signaled plans to expand Clearinghouse data availability and usability, with proposed changes expected by May 2026. The regulatory pipeline is moving on this front, which could either accelerate or sideline the legislative effort depending on how far FMCSA goes. The bill’s value is in ensuring permanent statutory authority for enhanced data sharing.

Bills facing headwinds

LICENSE Act (S 191 / HR 623)

Status: Still in committee. No movement.

I opposed this bill in January, and I oppose it now. The LICENSE Act would relax third-party CDL testing requirements at the exact moment FMCSA is tightening oversight of CDL schools and testing integrity. Duffy’s administration just removed 550 schools from the Training Provider Registry after 1,400 sting operations found widespread fraud. Expanding third-party testing authority while the system is demonstrably compromised is backwards policy. The 119th Congress’s own enforcement priorities contradict the premise of this bill. Sen. Lummis carries it in the Senate, and I respect her work on Connor’s Law, but this one cuts in the wrong direction.

Guaranteeing Overtime for Truckers Act (S 893 / HR 1962)

Status: No movement. Referred to committee.

The FLSA overtime exemption repeal remains politically radioactive. In a Republican-controlled Congress pushing deregulation and cost reduction, a bill that carrier associations say would dramatically increase operating costs has no realistic path. The arguments haven’t changed, the support structure remains Democratic-led (Sen. Padilla, Rep. Van Drew on the House side), and the math hasn’t improved. This is a conversation-starter, not legislation that moves in this Congress.

Predatory Truck Leasing Prevention Act (HR 5423)

Status: Referred to Subcommittee on Highways and Transit. No movement.

Democrat-only sponsorship (Rep. Brownley, D-CA) in a Republican-controlled committee. OOIDA and Teamsters support it, but ATA has pushed back on the Truck Leasing Task Force’s recommendations. The TLTF’s January 2025 final report called predatory lease-purchase programs “irredeemable tools of fraud and driver oppression,” but the political alignment needed to move this bill doesn’t exist in this Congress. Watch for whether elements get attached to the highway bill as compromise language.

DRIVE-SAFE Act (HR 5563) and SAFE Drivers Act (HR 5800 — the under-21 version)

Status: Committee referral. Six co-sponsors on the DRIVE-SAFE Act.

The under-21 interstate apprenticeship program created by the IIJA has been a documented failure. The numbers were never good. Rep. Crawford’s HR 5563 simplifies the program by removing driver-facing cameras, requiring forward-facing cameras and automatic emergency braking instead, and lowering probationary hour thresholds. ATA supports it. OOIDA opposes it. OOIDA has instead proposed a 150-mile radius approach, allowing younger drivers to cross state lines without full interstate authority. This is likely to be included in the highway bill, as both sides are actively negotiating terms.

Bills with no pulse

The following bills from my January tracker show no committee activity, no new co-sponsors, and no public momentum since introduction. They are not dead, but they are not breathing without a highway bill attachment:

Stop Aliens From Evading Driving Laws Act (HR 5330). TRAFFIC Act (S 3109). Diesel Truck Liberation Act (S 3007). Protecting America’s Roads Act (Van Duyne). Weigh Station Enforcement Act (Donalds). No CDLs for Illegals Act (Van Drew).

Several of these overlap with enforcement actions already taken by the Duffy administration. The political energy behind CDL fraud and non-domiciled licensing has shifted from the legislative branch to the executive branch. What remains for Congress is codification, and that happens in the highway bill or not at all.

State-level surge

The most underreported story in trucking regulation right now is happening in state legislatures.

Arizona HB 2345

Status: Cleared House Judiciary Committee 5-3 on January 28. Headed to the full Arizona House floor.

Rep. Livingston’s bill, making fraudulent CDL possession a Class 5 felony with mandatory vehicle impoundment, remains the template. The committee hearing produced the quote of the year from Rep. Livingston: “I don’t look at this as an immigration bill. I look at this as a safety bill.” Tony Bradley of the Arizona Trucking Association framed the core tension: “We nationalized the CDL program to make sure we had uniformity across the United States. We can’t have a patchwork of rules from state to state.” Similar legislation has been introduced in Florida, Kentucky, Illinois, Tennessee, and Oklahoma.

Iowa: The ELP pioneer

Iowa is writing the most aggressive state-level English proficiency bill in the country. House Study Bill 699, backed by the Iowa Motor Truck Association, cleared a three-member subcommittee in the Iowa House on February 18 and now heads to the full Transportation Committee. A companion bill, Senate File 2173, is advancing through the Senate.

The bill would prohibit the Iowa DOT from issuing or renewing a CDL unless a computer-based English proficiency exam is completed. Drivers caught operating without sufficient English proficiency would face a $1,000 fine, a serious misdemeanor charge punishable by up to one year in jail, and an immediate stop-driving order. Carriers employing non-proficient drivers face penalties from $3,000 to $10,000 per violation.

Blake Grolmus of the Iowa Motor Truck Association connected the dots directly to chameleon carriers in his subcommittee testimony: “We feel this bill is necessary to start attacking the issue at its root, the chameleon carriers who have created and perpetuated this issue.” He cited that 500 Iowa drivers have been placed out of service for English proficiency failures since enforcement resumed in June 2025, ranking 9th among the 50 states.

Iowa is doing what Congress hasn’t: creating enforcement penalties that make carriers financially liable for employing unqualified drivers. If this model spreads, it creates exactly the state-by-state patchwork the Arizona Trucking Association warned about, which is the fastest way to force federal preemption and standardization.

The executive-legislative convergence

The pattern is that Duffy’s enforcement actions and Congress’s legislative pipeline are converging on the same five issues, from opposite directions, at the same time: CDL fraud and Clearinghouse integrity. Duffy executed through Operation SafeDRIVE (8,215 inspections, 704 drivers out of service), the CDL school purge (550 schools removed after 1,400 stings), and the English-only testing mandate (February 20). Congress is positioning Connor’s Law and the Clearinghouse improvement bill for the highway package.

Non-domiciled licensing. Duffy finalized the rule on February 13, effective March 16, with $160 million in California funds and $128.6 million in Illinois funds as enforcement leverage. HR 5688 sits in committee as the statutory backstop.

Chameleon carriers. FMCSA launched an active investigation following the Indiana crash. Hageman introduced the SAFE Act on February 12. THE TEA carrier intelligence platform is developing the exact automated detection tool that the bill directs the FMCSA to create.

English proficiency. Executive order signed April 28, 2025. Enforcement guidance issued May 20. Over 12,000 drivers have been placed out of service since June. English-only testing announced February 20. Iowa, Arizona, and other states are now writing their own ELP statutes.

Third-party testing oversight. FMCSA removed 550 schools, placed 4,500 more on notice. The LICENSE Act still proposes expanding the system. The contradiction is glaring.

When the executive and legislative branches both attack the same problems simultaneously, the output accelerates. But it also creates the risk of conflicting approaches, duplication, and regulatory whiplash. The highway bill is where these threads need to be woven into coherent policy. Someone at DOT and someone on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee need to be coordinating the handoffs. Whether that’s happening is a question we’ll keep asking.

The trade policy wildcard

On February 20, the Supreme Court ruled in Nippon Steel Corp. v. United States that IEEPA-authorized tariffs are subject to judicial review. That decision cracked open the executive branch’s unilateral trade authority and introduced new legal uncertainty for every tariff-dependent policy in the transportation sector.

For the legislative tracker, this matters in three ways. First, any bill touching trade, tariffs, or cross-border freight now operates under a different legal framework than it did a month ago. The Section 232 tariffs that add an estimated $35,000 per imported truck are now legally challengeable. Second, the Diesel Truck Liberation Act (S 3007), which addresses emissions regulations affecting diesel truck costs, operates in a policy environment where equipment costs are already elevated by trade policy. Third, the USMCA renegotiation scheduled for July 2026 creates a second collision point with the highway bill timeline.

Congress is simultaneously negotiating a highway bill, responding to a tariff regime under legal challenge, and facing a surface transportation funding cliff. The bills in this tracker don’t exist in isolation. They exist in this vortex.

The deregulation counter-current

While safety enforcement has intensified, FMCSA also finalized 11 of 18 deregulatory rulemaking actions on February 19, a package that originated from the May 2025 “10 regulations eliminated for every 1 created” mandate. The final rules include electronic DVIR authorization, removal of the liquid-burning flare requirement, license plate lamp exceptions for tractors towing trailers, and other operational modernizations.

ATA and OOIDA both described the changes as “commonsense regulatory reform.” FMCSA emphasized that each individual rule has negligible economic impact, but the cumulative signal matters: this administration is simultaneously tightening safety enforcement on CDL integrity, English proficiency, and chameleon carriers while loosening operational requirements on equipment and recordkeeping. It’s a deliberate strategy. Enforcement where fraud exists, flexibility where compliance is routine.

For the legislative tracker, this creates a dual-track Congress that needs to be mirrored. The highway bill should codify both the enforcement escalation and the operational modernization. Bills that only address one side miss the picture.

What carriers should watch

The highway reauthorization markup is your calendar event. When the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee begins assembling the package, likely by late spring, we will find out which of these 25-plus bills become law and which die in committee. The September 30 deadline is real, the midterm election pressure is real, and the Highway Trust Fund shortfall is real.

Here is what I’m tracking between now and that markup:

Does the SAFE Act get a Senate companion? If Hageman’s chameleon carrier bill gets a Senate version, it’s almost certainly highway bill material. Does Connor’s Law get a committee hearing? Named-victim legislation with bipartisan potential needs a hearing to build the floor vote record. How do states respond to the non-domiciled CDL final rule? The March 16 effective date will trigger legal challenges. If courts block it, the legislative versions become urgent. Does the LICENSE Act get marked up? If the committee advances third-party testing expansion while FMCSA is shutting down fraudulent schools, the contradiction becomes the story. What comes out of the USMCA renegotiation? The July 2026 review timeline overlaps with highway bill negotiations and directly affects cross-border freight policy.

In January, we mentioned that 81% of Congress has no trucking-related legislative activity. That number hasn’t changed. But the 19% that are paying attention are moving faster than we’ve ever seen. The question isn’t whether trucking legislation passes in the 119th Congress. It’s how much of it survives the highway bill sausage grinder.

We’ll keep tracking. You keep reading.