A trade group of Chinese truck drivers has been denied a temporary restraining order (TRO) that would have stopped California from its pause in renewing commercial driver licenses that is part of the state\u2019s broader battle with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).<\/p>\n
The Chinese American Truckers Association had filed suit against FMCSA on January 7.\u00a0 Less than two weeks later, on Tuesday, Judge Jesus Bernal of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California denied that group\u2019s request for the TRO.<\/p>\n
In his decision, Judge Bernal cited the California vs. FMCSA battle that has led to the federal agency denying the state funding because of objections to the pace that the Golden State has undertaken in cracking down on non-domiciled CDLs granted by the state.<\/p>\n
\u201cFMCSA has made clear that California\u2019s issuance of non-domiciled CDLs, which FMCSA interprets broadly and includes renewals, is prohibited,\u201d the judge said in the TRO denial.<\/p>\n
Speculative vs. reality<\/p>\n
Quoting the Chinese trade group\u2019s lawsuit, Judge Bernal said the plaintiffs charge California with reacting via \u201ca speculative fear of federal consequences.\u201d But the judge says that downplays the reality of what has happened to the state so far over the dispute with FMCSA,\u00a0 the judge wrote.<\/p>\n
To back that up, Judge Bernald cites FMCSA\u2019s decision to withhold what it says is more than $150 million in federal funding because of what the federal agency says is California\u2019s noncompliance \u201cwith federal standards.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShould California continue to administer its non-domiciled CDL program in a manner FMCSA deems out of compliance with federal standards, FMCSA can withhold additional money and even decertify California\u2019 s entire CDL program,\u201d Judge Bernal wrote. Such a development would be \u201ccatastrophic,\u201d Judge Bernal said.<\/p>\n
Part of the broader dispute<\/p>\n
California and FMCSA are engaged in a standoff <\/a>over California\u2019s delay in cancelling more than 17,000 CDLs before early January. That already has led to the loss of federal funding referenced by Judge Bernal in his decision. California has complied with other steps demanded by FMCSA, and the action on non-domiciled renewals falls in that category.<\/p>\n The trade group\u2019s lawsuit lists nine\u00a0 of its members who were affected by the pause in CDL renewals.\u00a0In the lawsuit, the Chinese group summed up what it said is the problem for some of its members.<\/p>\n \u201cThe (Department of Motor Vehicles) has adopted and\/or implemented a blanket policy or practice of refusing to accept, process or adjudicate individualized renewal, replacement and\/or extension requests for non-domiciled CDLs approaching expiration based on a categorical pause in non-domiciled CDL processing,\u201d the lawsuit said.<\/p>\n In response, Judge Bernal wrote: \u201cWhile the court is sympathetic to those individuals who are allegedly impacted by the pause, it cannot be that the interest of those nine individuals (and many other non-domiciled CDL holders seeking replacement or renewal) outweigh the state\u2019s and public\u2019s interest in continued issuance capacity for all CDLs in the state,\u201d Judge Bernal added.<\/p>\n Judge Bernal also spelled out a Catch-22 situation for the drivers. If the TRO were implemented and California resumed processing renewals, FMCSA could decertify the state\u2019s program. The drivers now being affected by the delay in renewals \u201cwould be no better than off then they are now,\u201d the judge wrote.<\/p>\n More articles by John Kingston<\/a><\/p>\n LTL carrier Peninsula adding a 2-state surcharge for regulatory burdens<\/a><\/p>\n In Flowers Foods drivers\u2019 case, employee arbitration vs. litigation issue can\u2019t be overlooked<\/a><\/p>\n Trump administration backing C.H. Robinson on broker liability before SCOTUS<\/a><\/p>\n The post Court won\u2019t force California revival of non-domiciled CDL renewals\u00a0<\/a> appeared first on FreightWaves<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A trade group of Chinese truck drivers has been denied a temporary restraining order (TRO) that would have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,8893,15325,74471,13516,74470,74472,74473,47892,74474],"class_list":["post-150331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-cdl","tag-central-district-of-california","tag-chinese-american-truckers-association","tag-fmcsa","tag-jesus-bernal","tag-judge-bernal","tag-renewals","tag-trade-group","tag-tro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}