A federal appeals court has blocked a rule that stripped 200,000 drivers of commercial licences, finding the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) likely violated multiple legal requirements, reported New York's FreightWaves. The emergency stay highlights tensions between agency authority and procedural safeguards.

On November 10, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued an administrative stay against the interim final rule "Restoring Integrity to the Issuance of Non-Domiciled Commercial Drivers Licenses." Three days later, the court upgraded the pause to a full emergency stay, saying petitioners were likely to succeed on claims FMCSA acted unlawfully and arbitrarily.

The rule, issued September 29, took effect immediately without advance notice, public comment or state consultation. About 200,000 drivers lost eligibility overnight. FMCSA later opened a post-implementation comment period, but more than 7,200 submissions came after the rule was already in force.

FMCSA argued urgency was needed to prevent a surge of non-domiciled CDL applications and cited fatal crashes, audit failures and verification gaps as safety threats. Critics said the agency bypassed required procedures under the Administrative Procedure Act.

The non-domiciled CDL programme, intended as a narrow exception, became a vulnerability as some states issued licences with minimal checks. FMCSA identified compliance failures in six states, including California, which admitted issuing 20,000 licences in violation of its own laws.

Public Citizen Litigation Group filed suit on Oct 20 on behalf of drivers including Jorge Rivera Lujan, a DACA recipient, and Aleksei Semenovskii, an asylum seeker. King County, Washington joined separately, citing impacts on public transit operations. The consolidated case now awaits judicial review.