Sponsors
The bill strengthens safety, fraud prevention, and regulatory clarity across air and surface transportation—helping carriers, shippers, and enforcement agencies—while imposing new compliance, data-sharing, and criminal-exposure risks that may raise costs and disproportionately burden small businesses and immigrant drivers.
Small businesses, shippers, carriers, drivers, and passengers will face stronger coordinated detection and enforcement against cargo fraud and theft (including DOJ referrals and interagency MOUs) which should deter crime, speed recoveries, and improve supply-chain security.
Motor carriers, brokers, and regulators get clearer, standardized registration, identifier, and records rules (USDOT identifier replacing MC numbers; clarified broker definitions; standardized recordkeeping), reducing legal uncertainty and making compliance and audits more predictable.
States, regulators, and the public gain reduced risk from unauthorized commercial drivers because the bill requires verification of U.S. work authorization for certain license applicants and aligns CDL validity to work authorization.
Small carriers, brokers, training providers, state DMVs, and other small businesses will face new and sometimes extensive compliance, registration, audit, and reporting costs that could raise operating costs, increase fees, or push some providers out of the market.
Noncitizen drivers and immigrants may face shorter license validity, more frequent renewals tied to work authorization, and exclusion if they lack specific USCIS authorization for driving, creating fairness, labor, and access-to-work concerns.
Making willful submission or use of false aviation certifications a federal crime (with prison and fines) could expose transportation workers to severe criminal penalties for what may sometimes be technical, clerical, or disputed intent matters.
Based on analysis of 28 sections of legislative text.
Introduced February 26, 2026 by Todd Young · Last progress February 26, 2026
Requires the Department of Transportation and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to tighten freight and broker registration, detect and punish fraud, improve coordination with law enforcement, and strengthen rules on who may operate or drive commercial trucks in the U.S. It creates a training-provider registry, orders MOUs between DOT, DOJ, and Customs and Border Protection to share freight fraud information, moves registration from MC numbers to USDOT numbers, and requires restitution to certain victims of cargo theft who paid customs fines. Creates new criminal penalties for knowingly submitting fraudulent aviation-related certifications, mandates state checks of work authorization for commercial driver license (CDL) applicants, sets timelines for new systems and reports, and gives FMCSA authority to audit, suspend, and remove suspicious carriers or providers from public registries to counter fraud and theft in the freight system.