Trucking's regulatory map in Washington is drawn by a handful of committee chairs, and most of them changed on Tuesday. Democrats took at least 250 House seats and 54 Senate seats, Transport Topics counted on November 4, with dozens of House races still uncalled. That puts Rick Larsen of Washington in line to chair the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, replacing the retiring Sam Graves of Missouri, and Maria Cantwell, also of Washington, in line to replace Ted Cruz atop Senate Commerce. The industry's immediate attention, FreightWaves reported, is on a single uncalled seat: David Rouzer's.
The seats that matter, and who is in them
Rouzer, a North Carolina Republican, chairs the Highways and Transit subcommittee, introduced Dalilah's Law, and, with Graves gone, could be the ranking Republican on the full committee if he survives, FreightWaves noted. The North Carolina State Board of Elections' unofficial count, per Carolina Journal, has him at 159,606 votes, 49.85%, to Democrat Kimberly Hardy's 157,417, 49.17%, a margin inside the state's 1% threshold for a candidate-requested recount. The Associated Press had not called it as of Wednesday. County canvasses are November 13 and the state canvass November 24. Rouzer has already claimed victory; either way, Carolina Journal notes, he will serve in the minority.
Retirements alone cost the T&I Committee nine members across both parties, FreightWaves counted, and several Republican members were defeated or left to run for other offices. Graves' seat went to Chris Stigall, a conservative radio host. Chris Pappas of New Hampshire, a Democratic T&I member active on surface transportation funding, moved up to the Senate. On the Senate side, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee left Commerce to become governor, and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, another Commerce member, is in a race that, per Alaska Public Media, will not be settled until ranked-choice tabulation on November 18. Appropriations, which writes the riders that govern FMCSA year to year, loses its Republican chair: Susan Collins of Maine lost to Troy Jackson, and Jon Husted of Ohio lost to Sherrod Brown, who in his previous Senate career worked hours-of-service and independent-contractor issues. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi, also on Appropriations, trailed Scott Colom by about 1,100 votes in ABC News's Wednesday count, in a state whose law, ABC notes, provides for neither automatic nor requested recounts; thousands of absentee and affidavit ballots were still being processed.
Two other results are worth a trucker's attention. Mike Collins of Georgia, a House Republican with a trucking background who backed much of the industry's priority list, lost his Senate bid to Jon Ossoff; both campaigns ran ads aimed at truckers, with Ossoff citing a driver fed up with diesel prices and Collins citing his trucking background. And in California's Central Valley, Randy Villegas, who campaigned on suspending federal gas and diesel taxes, unseated David Valadao.
December 11: the highway bill clock
The outgoing Congress returns November 9 with a deadline. Surface transportation authority was extended on September 1, by a 370-48 House vote on a Senate-passed measure, from September 30 to December 11. The five-year, $580 billion BUILD America 250 Act cleared the T&I Committee on May 22 and has not moved since; the Senate had not introduced a bill of its own as of the September extension. Jim Mullen, president of the Truckload Carriers Association, told FreightWaves he expects the bill to be 'punted' to the new Congress and the lame-duck session to pass an extension running into June. 'I would think it'd be a pretty clean extension,' he said. 'I wouldn't think there'd be any sort of policy riders.'
What comes back in 2027 will be rewritten under Democratic management, and Mullen walked through the likely edits. Truck parking, a $750 million allotment over five years in the committee bill, is likely to make the cut, he said. The lease-purchase disclosure requirement, which would make carriers give owner-operators a form showing compensation, average weekly mileage and how many drivers actually end up owning the truck, has a constituency on both sides: OOIDA lists a crackdown on 'predatory lease-to-own schemes' among its asks for the next bill. The Autonomous Vehicle Accessibility Study, read in the industry as a pro-AV framework, is at risk: 'I think there might be a push among the Democrats with labor concerns to take that out,' Mullen said. And the one that has failed twice, in 2020 and again this year when an effort to add it 'eventually got stripped out' of the committee bill, is a higher minimum liability insurance requirement above the current $750,000. 'So my suspicion is that you'll see a provision in the revised bill,' Mullen said.
Dalilah's Law and the non-domiciled CDL question
Dalilah's Law, named for a California girl seriously injured in a 2024 crash involving a truck driven by a person in the country illegally, passed the T&I Committee in March on Rouzer's sponsorship and never got a Senate hearing. Committee Democrats voted against it mainly over its English-language proficiency requirements for CDL holders, which Larsen in March called redundant to other regulations, such as the tightening of standards earlier this year, and over non-domiciled CDL provisions they said would bar DACA recipients from ever driving. With Larsen holding the gavel, the bill in its current form has no visible path. Mullen's read: 'I think there is a high probability they will address the non-domiciled issue, but in a different fashion,' possibly a provision that restricts non-domiciled CDLs while preserving credentials for DACA holders.
The administrative side of that fight does not wait for Congress. FMCSA's final rule on non-domiciled CDLs, which the agency expects to remove about 200,000 drivers from the road and which makes an Employment Authorization Document insufficient and asylees, refugees and DACA recipients ineligible, was argued before a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit on September 15; Public Citizen's lawyers called it arbitrary, FMCSA's said states cannot see a foreign driver's 10-year record. A ruling is expected in the coming months. Ohio, meanwhile, recently announced it is ending its non-domiciled CDL program outright: after downgrading about 2,000 of roughly 5,000 credentials since May, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles will downgrade the rest to standard licenses 30 days after notice, with a hearing available. And on November 4 Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, announcing the Arkansas Operation Highway Shield results, said the department has placed 33,000 drivers out of service for English proficiency, revoked 31,000 CDLs it describes as improperly issued and shut nearly 10,000 driving schools, totals FreightWaves notes DOT did not itemize.
What a Democratic Congress can and cannot do to FMCSA
Congress cannot undo a final rule by a vote the president will not sign, and the non-domiciled CDL rule, the English-proficiency enforcement guidance and Operation Highway Shield are all executive actions that will continue. What Congress controls is money and text: appropriations riders that condition FMCSA's budget, the highway bill that sets the agency's five-year agenda, oversight hearings, and the Senate confirmation of anyone nominated to run DOT or FMCSA from January 3, 2027 onward. Expect the enforcement push to continue and the legislative push to narrow.
What the industry groups said
The American Trucking Associations, in a statement to FreightWaves, called the highway bill 'an opportunity to show that divided government doesn't have to mean dysfunctional government,' and in a Transport Topics column its chief advocacy and public affairs officer, Henry Hanscom, listed the priorities that do not change with the majority: cargo theft, roads and bridges, truck parking and 'lawsuit abuse.' ATA wants the lame-duck Congress to finish the bipartisan cargo-theft and freight-fraud measures, among them the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act, which the House passed this year and the Senate moved to attach to the defense bill. OOIDA's Bryce Mongeon, at the September extension, listed parking funding, restroom access and lease-purchase reform as the association's asks for the next bill. Also on the lame-duck list, per Transport Topics: legislation easing veterans' entry into trucking and reauthorization of the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act grant program, which the House passed to run through fiscal 2029.
Dates and decisions to watch
November 9: Congress returns. Watch for a surface transportation extension bill and whether it is clean, as TCA expects, or carries riders.
November 13 and 24: North Carolina county and state canvasses in Rouzer's district, with a recount possible under 1%. His outcome decides who leads the Republican side of T&I.
November 18: Alaska's ranked-choice tabulation, per Alaska Public Media, settles the Sullivan seat on Senate Commerce.
December 11: current highway authority expires. Congress has passed an extension every time it has missed this deadline, including 2020 and 2021.
January 3, 2027: new Congress. Larsen's first markup calendar, and whether BUILD America 250 is reintroduced as is or rewritten, tells you how much of the May bill survives.
Pending: the D.C. Circuit's ruling on the non-domiciled CDL rule, which arrives on the court's schedule, not Congress's.
For most of this year the federal pressure on trucking came from the executive branch, with Congress largely watching. Starting in January the watching will be done by a committee chair whose members voted against the English-proficiency bill and a Senate Commerce chair from the same state. The enforcement will not stop. The legislation around it is about to change hands, and the first evidence will be whether a $580 billion bill written in May gets reintroduced in January or rewritten.
Rules change. Your operation has to keep moving.
Qrylo follows FMCSA, Congress and the courts in plain language for the people who hold the CDL and the DOT number, next to equipment listings and carrier tools.