The Battle in Arkansas
A Legislative fight in Little Rock has major ramifications for North American trucking.
A number of hearings have taken place this week at the Arkansas State Capitol in Little Rock regarding two competing pieces of legislation, one which seeks to return basic common sense safety regulations to the trucking industry, and another which seeks to permanently codify regressions in requirements to obtain a Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) and thus legalize some very dodgy loopholes which are causing problems all over the country.
My colleagues at American Truckers United along with Arkansas State Rep Wayne Long have worked together to file the Secure Roads and Safe Trucking Act of 2025.
The act is pretty straightforward, and seeks to close some loopholes which have been used by trucking companies to insource unvetted and often illiterate drivers from other countries and fast track them into trucks here in the United States.
Shannon Everett discusses all of the reasons why he felt compelled to write this legislation on my podcast a few weeks ago.
The Replacement of American Truckers
The Voice Of GO(r)D podcast is extremely honored to have had the opportunity to introduce to you Mr Shannon Everett, of a legitimate trucker advocacy organization called American Truckers United that has been crunching data on the flooding of America’s trucking market with foreign ‘drivers’, and how our political class is allowing and actively encouragi…
If you haven’t listened yet, you should, or at very least read the extensive show notes.
The long and the short of it is that certain elements within the United States trucking industry have been lying their ass off about a shortage of truck drivers for decades now, and used that lie to lobby for various state assistance to find new drivers, rather than do anything to correct problems in the business, pay drivers more, or adjust the material conditions of the gig. Shannon has found suspicious connections between various states and the Biden Administration, who through a ‘Trucking Task Force’ gave orders to ‘streamline’ and ‘cut red tape’ with the issue of CDLs. In less than 12 months, this arrangement doubled the usual number of CDLs issued, and given what we know about training and testing capacity in the country, and the states involved in the doubling, this was not accomplished with domestic labor, nor anything resembling proper vetting of all these new ‘truck drivers’.
Many of you have seen the results, or at least seen my writings about it, including a horrific crash in Austin, Texas last Thursday, where the lives of five people were ended and eleven more sent to hospital, many with critical injuries.
Information about some of the victims has come out.
If you want to read more about the incident in Austin, as well as a link to my recent article in the Blaze outlining how this system of insourcing works -
Welcome To The Jungle, Part One
This past Thursday night in Austin, Texas, a collision took place on Interstate 35 that has seen 5 people killed and another dozen sent to hospital, many in critical condition.
You would think that ATU’s bill, which seeks to put a stop to the state of Arkansas engaging in this dissolution of safety on America’s highways would be a no brainer, but this is America, and corporate interests never go quietly. Once word of this bill got out, the Arkansas Trucking Association (ATA) put together their own bill to try and head off ATUs at the pass, and pull some sneaky wording to get around what the ATU bill proposes.
Harvey Beech and Shannon Everett of ATU with a quick word on HB1745 -
ATU’s Bill, HB1569, allows state enforcement of English language proficiency requirements which the Feds waived in 2016, and does not allow for operation of a commercial vehicle with a license from any other country except Canada or Mexico, nor with a learner’s permit from any other country. You must have a proper CDL, assuming the training and skills testing inherent in getting one. ATU’s Bill also prohibits commercial drivers from operating in the state on various visas, including B-1 and B-2, as those two types of visas have been found to be used by certain migrants when caught working for trucking companies who don’t want to employ locals. Sounds simple enough, right?
The ATA’s Bill, HB1745, uses some sneaky language, merely stating that a non-citizen driver must have some work authorization or EAD document, and a valid drivers license from another country. I’m sure that whatever scribble might be available from Eritrea or Ukraine is totally legit and that there are plenty of employees at the Arkansas DMV who can read those languages and contact those countries to confirm their legitimacy. Riiiigggggghhhht.
On that note, testimony on HB1745 from Chuck Reimer, a trucking safety and compliance expert.
At the end of HB1745, there is another curious passage regards who may drive a commercial motor vehicle in the state
Commercial driver license issued by Canada, 16 Mexico, or any other jurisdiction under a waiver or exemption recognized by 17 the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration;
Sounds like a sneaky way to pawn off responsibility onto the Feds.
We see this in an official statement from the ATA regards ATU’s HB1659 Bill given to local television station KATV on March 14 -
The ATA has publicly opposed HB 1569, emphasizing a preference for "solutions that are meaningful, enforceable, and withstand legal scrutiny without jeopardizing significant federal funding of our state’s infrastructure."
Let’s break this down.
solutions that are meaningful
Is the current state of the trucking industry, which is to say, a shambles, not meaningful?
Are a litany of incidents, collisions, and deaths stemming from unvetted illiterates across this country not meaningful?
Let’s hear from DeAnn Miller, widow of Scott Miller, who was killed by a ‘driver’ that had been deported back to Mexico 16 times, and who roared down a hill at nearly twice the posted speed limit before removing Mr Miller from this mortal coil. This testimony was recorded in public hearings about the ATA Bill, HB1745.
Let us also hear from LaDanya Bryant, widow of Mark Bryant, who was killed by a gentleman from Honduras in America illegally, didn’t even have a CDL, and was driving truck for a company out of Oklahoma.
I don’t know about you, but any effort to close loopholes, state or Federal, which are abused to insource incompetent labor into the country at the behest of a trucking industry that doesn’t want to fix it’s own problems or pay market rates for drivers seems pretty meaningful to me.
enforceable
I’m assuming the ATA are here alluding to the FMCSA waiver issued in 2016 that terminated meaningful enforcement of Federal CDL requirements for English Proficiency. Wouldn’t it be nice to get a court case in front of the Feds to argue about that.
and withstand legal scrutiny without jeopardizing significant federal funding of our state’s infrastructure
I guess the ATA are alluding to any potential fight from the Feds with regards to that waiver, or seeing the Commerce Clause invoked by Feds or other states who don’t want to screen their own truckers before sending them through Arkansas. And oh no!, they will use the same stick they always have, threats to cut Federal Funding.
It’s always about the money with bureaucrats and corporate lobbyists.
I say take them on, and get some nerd in court to argue that the feelings of migrants are more important than road safety which requires being able to read signs, weather reports, and other important information, or communicate with enforcement officials or the general public, and meeting the skill and competency requirements in possessing a real CDL. Expose these corporatist frauds for what they are, and what’s really going on here - wage suppression through the encouragement of mass migration by any means necessary.
I spoke with Shannon Everett on Friday evening for an update on the weeks events, which were mostly focused on the ATA Bill HB1745, which passed 93-1 on Thursday.
The ATUs Bill, HB1569, hasn’t even made it into committee yet, no doubt from the big money politics oft associated with attempting to fight the lobbying efforts of organizations like the Arkansas Trucking Association.
Nothing to see here, folks. It’s not like WalMart, FedEx, and JB Hunt aren’t all sitting on the board of the Arkansas Trucking Association.
Hearings on the ATA bill heard from 15 different experts and witnesses against it, including the testimony I shared above, with a whole lot of facts to back them.
The ATA Bill had only one ‘pro’ speaker at the hearings, who was a representative from the ATA itself.
Another Shannon, Shannon Newton, of the Arkansas Trucking Association presented, and punted on the issue as a Federal Question, which avoids the issue at hand. If the Feds aren’t doing their jobs, and other states aren’t doing their jobs, then the compact of responsible reciprocity of confirming the legitimacy of safe drivers is broken.
At least she conceded to removing the foreign learner’s permit nonsense.
As Shannon told me on the phone ‘Political power aligned against the people and the facts’ though he was positive about the ATA concession - ‘they removed language that recognized foreign country’s learners permits.’ A small step in the right direction, perhaps only taken because of how utterly ridiculous the idea is, as I alluded to above, that Arkansas DMV would be able to verify the standards for a learners permit from any number of countries, or if those permits were even real.
The Arkansas Capitol is on spring recess next week, and the battle resumes in April.
You ought to sign up with American Truckers United - its totally free, and you will be kept in the loop on various fronts in the War on Truckers -
https://americantruckers.com/sign-up-now/
In a very odd co-incidence to all of this, the acting head of the FMCSA, Adrienne Camire, a lawyer who only held the position for two and half weeks, stepped down yesterday. Camire, who has zero experience in the operational side of the trucking business, and was one of these odd appointments that are very puzzling to people whom believe competency and expertise ought guide them. Perhaps in being a lawyer, she recognized the utter mess that the FMCSA has made of the business over the years, and saw their complicity in failing to stop the sneaky workarounds and ‘streamlining’ that were used to bring us so many deadly and incompetent ‘truckers’.
Or maybe that FMCSA is just following its own record of tracking the industry it’s meant to regulate by having a major retention problem where it concerns top talent that gets the job done properly.
Myself and the Team from American Truckers United will be at the Mid-America Trucking Show next week in Louisville, Kentucky, and I hope to see you there.
Questions, comments, suggestions, corrections and Hate Mail are always welcomed and encouraged - gordilocks@protonmail.com
This is a critically important story you will NEVER see in the corporate media. Thanks for this, and please keep us posted.
Causing carnage on Canadian highways, too.