California Governor and 2028 White House hopeful Gavin Newsom may have just ticked off Golden State voters to the tune of a jaw-dropping $40 million in critical federal aid.
Yesterday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced he will withhold $40 million from California because it is the only state that failing to enforce English language requirements for truckers.
“California is the only state in the nation that refuses to ensure big rig drivers can read our road signs and communicate with law enforcement. This is a fundamental safety issue that impacts you and your family on America’s road,” Duffy said.
The news comes after an investigation launched after a deadly Florida crash involving a foreign truck driver who made an illegal U-turn on Aug. 12 found what Duffy called significant failures in the way California is enforcing rules that took effect in June after one of President Donald Trump’s executive orders.
California had issued the driver a commercial license, but these English rules predate the crash.
According to the federal mandate, truckers are supposed to be disqualified if they can’t demonstrate English proficiency.
Duffy said the driver involved in the crash should not have been given a commercial license because of his immigration status.
The crash became a political hot button topic as both Newsom and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis criticized each other, along with Duffy highlighting the administration’s immigration concerns in interviews.
Three people died when truck driver Harjinder Singh made an illegal U-turn on a highway about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of West Palm Beach and a minivan slammed into his trailer, according to Florida’s Highway Patrol. Singh and his passenger were not injured.
Newsom’s office said California followed all the rules when it issued a license for Singh in July 2024, while the federal government confirmed at that time that he was in the country legally.
Duffy and Florida authorities have said Singh, who is from India, entered the country illegally from Mexico in 2018.
Despite the state losing the staggering amount of federal money, Newsom and his team continue to maintain they aren’t doing anything wrong.
Diana Crofts-Pelayo, a spokesperson for Newsom, said statistics show that California commercial truck drivers have a lower crash rate than the national average.
But Duffy said when he announced his concerns in August that California had conducted roughly 34,000 inspections that found at least one violation since the new language standards took effect. But only one inspection involved an English language rules violation that resulted in a driver being taken out of service. And 23 drivers with violations in other states were allowed to continue driving after inspections in California.
Now Duffy has drawn a clear line in the sand as to how the state will get the money back.
The Transportation Department said that to get this funding reinstated, California must adopt regulations to enforce the English rules and ensure that state inspectors are testing truck drivers’ English skills during roadside inspections and pulling anyone that fails out of service, according to the New York Post.
Duffy has threatened to pull another $160 million from California because of the way the state issues commercial drivers licenses. Duffy significantly restricted who can qualify for those licenses last month, according to The Post report.