▶ 0:50:28I want to thank you all for being here. We are getting there. It's crazy days as you can imagine. Everybody's
▶ 0:54:46This subcommittee will come to order. Without objection, [clears throat] the chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time. We welcome everyone to today's hearing on foreign involvement and threats to America's transportation I now recognize the doctor, the gentleman from Dr. Rand from Missouri to lead us in the pledge of allegiance.
▶ 0:55:15I pledge algiance
▶ 0:55:16to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for
▶ 0:55:27Remain standing for a moment of silence. I will now recognize myself for an opening statement. Again, I want to welcome everyone and I want to thank the witnesses for being here today.
▶ 0:55:58I guess you could say this hearing is about control and who ultimately pays the price when we give that control away. Every day, millions of Americans travel on our nation's highways, leaving behind a detailed digital record of who they are, where they go, what their destination is, and how they got there. And I I I want to say I think on this hearing today, and I may be wrong, we're going to find out.
▶ 0:56:28I think there may be some bipartisanship, not on all the subjects of the hearing, but particularly on this piece of it, and I'm hopeful for that. Um, we're going to find out, but I think we all agree that this is a serious issue. Electronic toll collection systems like Easy Pass were sold to the public as a convenience. You drive through, you get a bill later. Those bills get pretty big, by the way. But your data also does get tracked.
▶ 0:56:55And in an alarming trend, more and more of this data is being stored and being controlled by foreign entities. In my home state of New Jersey, the Easy Pass system used by millions of residents. Some of the most traveled roads in the United States of America are in the state of New Jersey. The New Jersey Turnpike, for example, used by millions and businesses as well.
▶ 0:57:19um is now operated by a company under foreign government controlled, a singer Singaporean company with documented ties to the Chinese Communist Party. That means Americans are paying tolls into a system that is not under American control. And in interestingly enough, New Jersey had a choice. There was an American company that submitted a lower bid to operate the system. Many believe it was a responsible bid.
▶ 0:57:45Instead of choosing the option that would have kept control here at my home and save residents money, the state went with the higher, more expensive foreign bid. And this is at a time when families are struggling with inflation, high prices, increased of cost of living pressures. New Jersey taxpayers were asked to pay more for less accountability and less security. Higher costs, less more foreign control. It's a bad formula.
▶ 0:58:15And the problems do not end with those who operate our toll systems. It extends to what is embedded inside the infrastructure itself. The United States has become dangerously dependent on Chinese manufactured infrastructure components, including batteries, sensors, and cameras.
▶ 0:58:37In 2024, the Department of Homeland Security estimated that at least at least 12,000 Chinese-made internet cameras were already in use across United States infrastructure. A February 2025 DHS report revealed that many of these cameras lack basic data encryption and security settings and by default they can communicate directly with their manufacturer located in China.
▶ 0:59:07That means foreign entities may have visibility into American facilities, American operations and American vulnerabilities. Chinese state sponsored cyber attack groups linked to the Chinese government have demonstrated the capability to infiltrate US infrastructure, steal sensitive data and maintain persistent access inside our networks. Once again, it comes back to control.
▶ 0:59:36If we do not control the systems, the hardware and the data, then we don't control the risk. And the loss of American control does not stop with toll systems or infrastructure. Under the Biden administration, states were allowed to issue CDLs, commercial driver licenses to individuals who are not qualified and not proficient in English. This is where it may not be as bipartisan. Truck drivers must be able to read road signs.
▶ 1:00:03I if you're driving an 18-wheeler, a semi on the road, I think you got to be able to understand the signs. I don't know that that's complicated. They've got to be able to communicate with law enforcement and respond in emergencies. When states ignore those requirements, Americans pay the price. Let me give you a few examples. March 13, 2025, Austin, Texas.
▶ 1:00:24A tractor trailer driven, slowed for a stop in traffic, plowed into more than a dozen vehicles, killed five people, including an infant and a child. The driver couldn't read and write English. November 14th, 2025. Boone County, Indiana. An illegal immigrant from the c country of Georgia driving with a New York issued non-domiciled CDL lost control of an 18-wheeler, killing a National Guardsman by the name of Terry Fry. Ontario, California.
▶ 1:00:55A semi-truck driven by an undocumented immigrant crashed on Interstate 10, killing three Americans and injuring several others. A commercial St. Lucy County, Florida. A commercial truck driver with limited English proficiency made an illegal maneuver on the Florida Turnpike that and and resulted in a crash, killed three people. Washington State, an undocumented commercial driver struck a stopped vehicle on a state highway, killing a motorist.
▶ 1:01:24These are not just statistics. These are families. These are brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, daughters and sons, peoples whose families were destroyed because of what happened. Once again, it does come back to control. When states abandon enforcement of federal law, Americans, American families suffer the Safety on American roads is not American roads should be controlled by Americans.
▶ 1:01:55American data should be controlled and protected by Americans and American safety standards should be enforced for the benefit of Americans. I thank the witnesses for being here today and I do look forward to your testimony. I am now going to rank recognize the ranking member from the great state of Texas, Ms. Crockett for an opening
▶ 1:02:23Thank you so much, Mr. Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the witnesses for appearing today to discuss threats to our transportation system. This is a serious national security issue. So, I appreciate the opportunity to have a bipartisan discussion, something that does not happen very often here, about how our foreign adversaries target America's critical infrastructure.
▶ 1:02:46Just last fall, the Federal Highway Administration warned that spyw wear had been found inside foreign manufactured systems used to operate the signs, traffic cameras, weather stations, and vehicle chargers that line our highways all across the country. These communication devices could be used to collect individuals transportation data, could be used to hack into government systems, and could even be used to cause outages in major American cities.
▶ 1:03:16Infiltration of our supply chains is just one vulnerability our adversaries can exploit. We consistently see our adversaries target our critical infrastructure with cyber espionage and cyber attacks. Unfortunately, from sending the names of CIA operatives over email to including a journalist in a signal group chat discussing war plans, President Trump's administration has shown a blatant disregard for our cyber security.
▶ 1:03:45The president has gutted the cyber security and infrastructure security agency, our core civilian cyber defense agency. He also fired the head of the US Cyber Command, DHS's cyber safety review board and cyber security professionals at the NSA and NIST.
▶ 1:04:05The DHS determined the critical infrastructure partner advisory council, a key advisory group that provided space for public private collaboration to coordinate and craft cyber security plans to protect critical Experts repeatedly emphasize that public private partnerships is necessary to protect the cyber security of our critical infrastructure.
▶ 1:04:30But the cyber security information sharing act which facilitates the public private cyber threat intelligence ecosystem expired last fall and the Republican le Congress has failed to reauthorize it. President Trump's administration has also disbanded key operations targeting foreign malign influence. Attorney General Pam Bondi dissolved the FBI's foreign influence task force.
▶ 1:04:55Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard dismantled the intelligence community's foreign malign influence center. So it appears that there is no longer any federal body dedicated to tracking and analyzing foreign state efforts to interfere in American society. Meanwhile, the president seems to get friendlier with the heads of authoritarian adversarial nations every day.
▶ 1:05:20This dismantling of the federal government's cyber security and national security resources and the continued politicization of our federal agencies has left state and private officials reluctant to trust and share information with our federal government. This threatens the security of all critical infrastructure from our health care to our elections to our transportation systems.
▶ 1:05:45It is vital that we address the ways our foreign adversaries target our key critical infrastructure sectors. But in my opinion, the largest threat to our national security and critical infrastructure is not undocumented immigration or foreign investment. It's the incompetent folks at the highest levels of our government that have dismantled our cyber security resources. Thank you and I yield back.
▶ 1:06:11I thank the ranking member. With that, I will recognize the ranking member of the full committee, Mr. Rascin.
▶ 1:06:21Thank you very much, Chairman Van Drew, and thank you to all of our witnesses for joining us today. Um, to the extent that our colleagues uh have called this hearing to examine how foreign threat actors are compromising our national security by targeting transportation and critical infrastructure. That is a valid and meaningful subject of inquiry and I salute the chairman for this initiative.
▶ 1:06:46China is in strategic competition with the United States and is using cyber espionage to undermine our defenses. Cyber security is of serious concern in the transportation sector because of the vast number of targets that operate new technologies and are run by a wide array of government and private entities from AIdriven software to trip reliant hardware. Advancement in technology of course has great promise to make transportation faster, cheaper and safer.
▶ 1:07:14But we must be vigilant to ensure these systems are not vulnerable to infiltration or attack from malign actors like Putin's autocratic Russia or the Stalinist bureaucrats of China. But we cannot honestly discuss and debate the issue without addressing how President Trump has gutted the safeguards that protect our transportation and critical infrastructure against foreign threats.
▶ 1:07:39The programs and personnel in the US government that keep us safe have been cut wholesale and have been bizarrely politicized, jeopardizing our national security. Trump removed a third of the workforce at the Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency, which helps government and business work together to identify cyber threats before it's too late.
▶ 1:08:03That reduction included department officials dedicated to local government coordination with business, which is crucial to transportation infrastructure security. Trump fired the chairman of the joint chiefs and other top level military leadership, eliminating continuity in national security.
▶ 1:08:22And his attorney general shut down the FBI's foreign influence task force, the group responsible for identifying and combating malign foreign influence operations targeting the people of the United States. Trump's approach to national security, especially cyber security, is that of a coach who's friendly with the coaches of foreign teams and then suddenly takes his goalie off net.
▶ 1:08:50So to my mind, I don't think we can have a serious conversation about hardware vulnerabilities if we're going to ignore the fact that President Trump has made our infrastructure substantially less safe in just one year's time.
▶ 1:09:05What's even more confusing to me about today's hearing is that we're examining foreign threats as though Donald Trump isn't systematically seeding more global power to China every single day, even as he multiplies and deepens his own personal business ties to China. During his first term, Trump collected millions of dollars in payments from the Chinese government and state-owned companies.
▶ 1:09:31In exchange for these unconstitutional emalments, he opposed sanctions against Chinese telecom companies and banks, even when they threatened our national security. He even tried to cancel military exercises with Japan and South Korea because China complained about them. In the second term, we have seen even more of an enthusiastic presidential embrace of the tyrants and dictators.
▶ 1:09:56Over the last year, the administration has dismantled USAID, giving China free reign to swoop in and offer countries around the world assistance with their infrastructure construction projects, their agricultural programs, their food aid, and public health, dramatically expanding China's sphere of influence.
▶ 1:10:20Trump has also hurt American consumers by imposing unlawful and arbitrary tariffs and hamstrung our ability to respond to threats by firing government workers, including key experts on China and national security personnel. All the while, he's been using his crypto ventures to pocket hundreds of millions of dollars directly from Chinese billionaires with ties to the CCP.
▶ 1:10:46In May, a tiny Chinese tech company with ties to the government announced it had bought $300 million of President Trump's memecoin despite the fact that it has no revenue and only eight employees. Gee, I wonder where the money is really coming from. So, one year in Trump's second term, we've learned that other countries think that Donald Trump is indeed making a country great, but that country is not America. It's China.
▶ 1:11:16In a 21 country poll by the European Council on Foreign Relations, the majority of respondents around Europe said that while the US is less feared by its adversaries and less revered by its friends, they fully expect China's global influence to continue to grow over the next decade. And it's no wonder why they think that, Mr.
▶ 1:11:39chairman when Trump is inviting China, an egregious human rights violator, to join the Gaza Board of Peace and reverse his course and allows US chip exports to China in a move that enthropic CEO likened to selling nuclear weapons to North Korea. So my friends, I wish this could just be about the problem of hardware technology and transportation, but it exists in this larger political context.
▶ 1:12:08And I think that we have to make that clear for everyone if we are serious about confronting the problem of Chinese and Russian tyrannical influence in our government. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
▶ 1:12:21I thank the ranking member. And let me say only conjecture here. I'm not sure, but I have this sneaking suspicion, this intuitive feeling the other side doesn't like President Trump all that much.
▶ 1:12:34Am I right?
▶ 1:12:36I've never met him.
▶ 1:12:37I've never met him.
▶ 1:12:38Seriously, [laughter] at the same time,
▶ 1:12:39it it's it's not personal. We're looking just at what the effect is on the American people.
▶ 1:12:43I know. I'm trying to have a little levity. Uh with that, I thank Mr. Raskin. And without objection, all their opening statements will be included in the record. We will now introduce today's witnesses. And the first witness I am going to try not to murder your name. Let's see how I do. Miss Emily Dulla Breer. Pretty close. Okay. Thank you for being
▶ 1:13:09The floor is yours.
▶ 1:13:10Thank you. Thank you, Chairman B.
▶ 1:13:12Actually, let me You know what? Let me do a little history of you. I'm sorry. I'm um you're a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank that conducts research on our national security and foreign policy issues. Your work focuses on China, economic security, international organizations, and supply chains. Now, the floor is yours.
▶ 1:13:34Thank you, Chairman Vandrew. Thank you, Ranking Member Crockett. Thank you for this opportunity and both having names much easier to pronounce than mine. The Chinese Communist Party wants to control global resources, markets, and information so that it can control the world. Beijing pursues this ambition by leveraging non-market industrial policy through which it subverts critical supply chains and networks.
▶ 1:13:58A strategy of military civil fusion through which it turns that positioning into a forward deployed military presence and a program of state sponsored data collection through which every Chinese company and component becomes an asset for influence and espionage. Transportation systems are a core part of this Chinese strategy. Beijing defines transportation systems as part of the military civil fusion ecosystem because they're necessary for industrial operations, social functioning, and military mobilization.
▶ 1:14:26For that reason, China protects its own transportation systems domestically while looking to penetrate them internationally. Transport systems also represent a massive economic opportunity. The US auto sector, for example, alone accounts for some 11 million jobs and $1.2 trillion of national output a year. Beijing wants those markets. Beijing also wants the military relevant tech and industrial capacity that undergurtds them. But China wants something else from transportation systems too.
▶ 1:14:55Today's technological trends are pushing the transport ecosystem toward an intelligent connected data is everything paradigm. In that environment, every foothold in a transport system, whether that's a component or a piece of software or a vehicle, becomes a possible backdoor. Everything is a computer. China is hacking all of it.
▶ 1:15:14For this reason, China's presence in US transportation systems a threatens US industry and supply chains and markets and B grants Beijing access to critical information on American society, the power to influence that information and therefore society and the ability to disrupt the foundational networks on which our country depends. This isn't a notional danger. It's not something that's on the horizon. Our system is already embedded with Chinese components and we're already under attack.
▶ 1:15:45LiDAR offers a valuable example. Autonomous vehicles use LAR to map their surroundings. Airports use it to track movement and crowds. Bridges use it to scan for defects. China controls 90% of the world's LAR market. The Chinese entities that are leading this charge are companies like Hassai, Robocense, Huawei, DJI that the US government has already identified as tied to the Chinese military.
▶ 1:16:12Those Chinese military tied companies sell to GM's Cruise and Nvidia's Drive Hyperion. Their LAR sensors have been installed in JFK International Airport and Charlotte Douglas International Airport. Chinese LAR sensors are on intersections in Chattanooga and on draw bridges in Every purchase of a Chinese LAR sensor funds the Chinese Communist Party.
▶ 1:16:36Every Chinese LAR sensor risks collecting information on behalf of Beijing, and all of them could be turned off at China's command. This isn't a unique case. LAR is not isolated. The same story plays out ac across the broader ecosystem of components that go into modern transportation systems, whether those are IoT modules or optical transceivers or cameras. Moreover, moving beyond the component level, Beijing is also building out the platform and software level of modern transportation.
▶ 1:17:06China's the world's largest player in incar AI agents. Beijing's also developing unrivaled global shipping and transportation and logistics solutions like for example logging a Chinese national platform that provides a centralized window into the otherwise fragmented world of global shipping under the Chinese government's Washington needs to stop further Chinese penetration of our transportation systems. Those efforts can start with direct restrictions.
▶ 1:17:35No company that uses Chinese components or software or those made by a Chinese influenced entity should be eligible for federal procurement, federal tax incentives or any other federal incentives. In establishing restrictions like that, Washington should also tighten and clarify fi and PFE rules to make it clear what it is that is a Chinese entity and to make that a stricter Targeted measures like this can directly bolster the security of American transportation systems.
▶ 1:18:05But Washington should also take broader action to change the state of play that has allowed China to embed itself into our critical infrastructure systems. Tariffs on Chinese goods can help dissuade the US private sector from buying from Chinese entities and therefore from being complicit with the Chinese Communist Party. Tariffs can also create the circumstances in which to rebuild a trusted American industry.
▶ 1:18:28On the data front, no company that stores data in China should be permitted to collect data in the United States or be eligible for federal procurement, defense industrial-based procurement, federal tax credits, or other incentives. And Washington should leverage trade deals to compel US allies and partners to enact their own defenses against China such that they don't serve as conduits for the Chinese Communist It might seem impossible now to think that China could supplant American giants like FedEx, like Boeing, like Ford,
▶ 1:18:59but that scenario is on the very, very near horizon. Should it come to pass, China will claim a determinative advantage. Washington needs to fight back. Thank you for your time.
▶ 1:19:12Thank you. Very informative. I I I think that outlines the seriousness of this issue. I know it's not the sexiest issue in Congress that everybody's talking about and I get it. Um, but this room should be packed and everybody should hear this and listen to it. It's a serious serious issue. And again, as I said before, and I understand components of what you're talking about and your issues, but it should be a bipartisan one as well. Now, your name on the other hand, Mr. Cole, is Rocky Cole.
▶ 1:19:42Couldn't be easier than that, right?
▶ 1:19:45The floor is yours. Thank you, Chairman Van Drew, Ranking Member Crockett, and distinguished members of the committee for the opportunity to testify today. The topic of the hearing is embedded threats in America's transportation systems, and I will certainly address those directly. However, I believe, as several other people have pointed out, that these threats are best understood in the broader contexts of adversarial cyber operations against America's critical infrastructure as they constitute one piece of a larger strategic landscape.
▶ 1:20:14Uh, my name is Rocky and I've worked to counter America's top cyber adversaries for almost 20 years now. First within the United States intelligence community, then at Google, and now at a US-based venture capitalbacked company called I Verify, which secures the very powerful computers in our pockets, mobile phones. I've witnessed the strategic evolution of cyber operations from the earliest days of mere cyber espionage to what can only be called today's cyber cold war.
▶ 1:20:41and my experiences have informed a somewhat unique perspective on both the problem and steps we can take to mitigate the threats. In cyerspace, America has two historical rivals, China and Russia. Historically, both Chinese and Russian cyber operations were focused on intelligence gathering. For China, this meant extracting intellectual property to feed their made in China 2025 strategy, which a former director of the NSA described as the greatest uh transfer of wealth in human history.
▶ 1:21:09While Russia focused on more traditional espionage goals, however, we have recently as in within the last 5 years reached a watershed moment where the objective of cyber operations have shifted to prepositioning for disruptive effects. Modern doctrine now views cyerspace as a basic platform for hybrid warfare where blinding cyber attacks are intended to paralyze command and control networks before kinetic operations even begin.
▶ 1:21:34The US intelligence community assesses with high confidence that these actors are embedding quote sleeper software within our infrastructure to be activated at will. The threat from China is particularly acute through several multi-year campaigns aimed at achieving information dominance. The Volt Typhoon campaign, for example, targets energy, water, and yes, transportation sectors specifically to disable military mobilization and so domestic chaos that would distract US leaders during a potential invasion of Taiwan.
▶ 1:22:04Furthermore, Salt Typhoon has compromised the backdoor systems used by telecommunication providers for court-ordered wiretapping and allowing China to monitor law enforcement, track the real-time geolocations of millions of Americans, and compromise our mobile devices. These operate these operations have even expanded to targeting toll systems and compromising state level commercial driver's license databases. All of which are vital for our national to evade detection.
▶ 1:22:30These actors have refined their methods to bypass modern defenses through malware intrusions. They utilize techniques like living off the land use which means using legitimate system administration tools to blend in with normal activity and avoid detection using largely stolen credentials like passwords and tokens as the as their initial access point. And finally, as per the topic of this hearing, they increasingly utilize supply chain operations to gain backdoor access to critical technologies.
▶ 1:22:56This can manifest as tampering with or implanting hardware components, inserting malicious code into software updates, or compromising the integrity of manufacturing processes for devices like routers, servers, and even large industrial equipment such as port grains. Despite the magnitude of the threat, the United States remains hamstrung by a patchwork regulatory landscape and structural challenges that impede a unified defense. Our defensive posture is characterized by voluntary frameworks that have failed to keep pace with the adversaries strategic pivot to prepositioning.
▶ 1:23:24And compounding this is the complexity of coordinating between the federal government and 50 state level regulatory bodies. This asymmetry demands a significant structural and legal overhaul to achieve true cyber deterrence both on the offensive side and on the defensive side. This includes formalizing the authority for the United States Cyber Command to quote defend forward and disrupt adversarial groups within foreign networks before they reach the homeland.
▶ 1:23:48We must also address systematic personnel failures within the United States Cyber Command by transitioning towards an independent cyber force that establishes uniform standards for recruitment and training and bypasses the traditional military standards that have frankly hindered our cyber readiness. And most importantly, we should consider advancing a fra a framework that treats cyber attacks on critical infrastructure that may imperil human life as the acts of war that they are equivalent to kinetic strikes.
▶ 1:24:14We must also harden our domestic resilience by moving beyond purely voluntary standards. Congress should fund states to build high maturity response capabilities and convert voluntary resilient standards into mandates for systematically important entities requiring redundant power and physical hardening across critical sectors. We must shift the legal duty of care to software manufacturers and away from the end users like local governments.
▶ 1:24:37instead holding the software designers liable for design flaws while mandating a move to secure by design principles rather than today's voluntary pledges. And finally, to mitigate supply chain risks, Congress should consider implementing mandatory screening and eventual and the eventual phase out of Chinese manufactured hardware with remote communications capabilities within highly sensitive critical infrastructure and federal networks akin to the rip and replace campaigns that Congress has already funded to remove Chinese-made telecom telecommunications
▶ 1:25:07gear from America's core networks. Thank you, and I look forward to your
▶ 1:25:12Thank you, Mr. Cole. Along with that, let me say you're the co-founder and COO of Iver Verify, a cyber security company focus focused on mobile phones. You previously worked at Google and Deote and served with the National Security Agency. Mr. Chris Spear is next. Mr. Spear is the president and chief CEO officer of the American Trucking Association, an organization made up of trucking companies.
▶ 1:25:36He also serves on the board of directors for American Transportation Research Institute and the Trucking Cares Foundation. Mr. Chairman Vandrew Raiking, Member Crockett, members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify here today. For over 90 years, the American Trucking Associations has represented an industry that employs the hardest working men and women in the country. Safety is in our DNA.
▶ 1:26:04It is at the forefront of everything that we do. The overwhelming majority of America's 3.6 million truck drivers take immense pride in their work. They meet every requirement every day and they move our economy forward with proficiency and with pride.
▶ 1:26:22Safely operating a tractor trailer requires a specialized skill and an adherence to high standards of A CDL should represent a promise that the person behind the wheel of an 80,000 lb vehicle is qualified, competent, and Regrettably, years of lacks and uneven enforcement have undermined that promise.
▶ 1:26:48Serious vulnerabilities, particularly related to driver training and CDL issuance, have been exposed through several high-profile tragic and preventable crashes. CDL mills, which masquerade as a legitimate schools, have fasttracked prepared individuals into trucking by putting profits before training.
▶ 1:27:08Meanwhile, state licensing agencies handed out improper credentials, and federal regulators look the other way, enabling unqualified individuals to climb into the driver's seat. ATA has long warned that insufficient compliance allows unsafe operators to obtain CDLs. Fortunately, Secretary Duffy has made it a priority to close these loopholes.
▶ 1:27:34Our federation has been working handin glove with US DOT to implement comprehensive We know that meaningful oversight works. Since December, FMCSA at DOT has removed nearly 7,000 CDL mills from the training provider registry and put an additional 450 non-compliant providers on notice.
▶ 1:27:58These actions, coupled with upholding federal driver qualifications and implementing regular audits, are critical steps toward improving the CDL system. We appreciate the subcommittee's focus on these issues and we look forward to being a resource as you seek to codify these regulations. While the integrity of CDLs is foundational to highway safety, the systems that monitor driver compliance and enable roadside enforcement are just as critical.
▶ 1:28:29In recent years, the proliferation of non-compliant electronic logging devices has emerged as a serious and rapidly evolving threat. Cheating has gone high techch with some devices using AI to produce fake documentation like fuel and food receipts to fabricate hours of service. Equally concerning our digital back doors that could provide US adversaries access to sensitive supply chain data.
▶ 1:28:59When operators are able to purchase devices that falsify logs or conceal violations, it rewards unsafe behavior and penalizes carriers who invest in compliance systems. ATA strongly supports FMCSA's efforts to strengthen electronic logging device certification which have led to the removal of nearly 100 non-compliant devices in just the last two months.
▶ 1:29:26An additional 250 devices have been removed underscoring the need for better vetting on the front end. We urge Congress to improve device screening, apply greater scrutiny to foreignowned ELDs, and enhance penalties against violators. Another growing concern involves crossber trade with Mexico. B1 visas allow Mexican drivers to haul freight between Mexico and the US but not within the United States.
▶ 1:29:54When B1 drivers haul domestic freight, it is called cababotage and it's illegal. This underhanded practice exploits Mexican drivers and it's unfair to law-abiding motor carriers and American truck drivers. ATA is pushing for stepped up enforcement against these violations. Finally, I'd like to draw the subcommittee's attention to a transportation security lapse within the Department of Defense that was identified by ATA's government uh freight conference.
▶ 1:30:25The department is improperly awarding shipments to unauthorized carriers to move sensitive cargo like M1 Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles. This practice compromises safety by putting military freight in the hands of unvetted carriers and drivers. Last year, ATA worked with Congress to enact several provisions in the NDAA aimed at this problem, and we will continue to partner with you to shore this up.
▶ 1:30:52ATA thanks the subcommittee for your interest in identifying foreign ownership risks and hidden vulnerabilities across our transportation system. I look forward to answering your questions. Thank you, Mr. Spear. Mr. Rob Kanaki, he is the chief executive officer of TPO Group, a cyber security consulting firm. He previously served as the deputy national cyber director with the National Security Council and at the Department of Homeland Security. Mr.
▶ 1:31:26Thank you, Chairman Vandrew, and thank you, Ranking Member Crockett and members of the committee for the opportunity to testify on this subject. While I can't speak to the issues that my colleague, Mr. Spear, has addressed, I think you're going to find that the bipartisan approach that you were hoping for, Chairman Vandrew, really has emerged, at least within the cyber security community, on these topics.
▶ 1:31:49There is very little that I could disagree with in either the tone or the substance of what my other two panelists have said on the cyber threats so as not to repeat much of what they have said. Let me make a a series of points uh about how we address these threats. Um first let me applaud the focus on embedded threats. As Mr.
▶ 1:32:13Cole pointed out, our critical infrastructure is compromised through remote hacking capabilities that China, Iran, Russia and North Korea have deployed. This is a serious issue. This is a serious risk and more needs to be done to address that traditional threat.
▶ 1:32:31But the threat from embedded systems that are dependence on Chinese- produced electronics, Chinese IT components and Chinese products uh is unique to China because of the scale of their manufacturing and the lack of capacity that we have in the United States today.
▶ 1:32:51So I will primarily focus my remarks on the cyber aspects here, but it should be noted that in the event of a conflict with China, they will have the ability to cut off supplies for critical minerals, for critical goods, for critical parts and services that our economy needs to run.
▶ 1:33:11That alone means that we need to diversify our supply onshore supply and build trusted supply networks with our allies overseas. Well, we need to diversify our supply. We also simply cannot simply trust that something produced by an ally or something produced by a US company built by US citizens is necessarily trusted.
▶ 1:33:39So let me go for another point of bipartisanship here by quoting Ronald Reagan. This is an area where the mantra needs to be trust but verify. We need to verify that the systems we rely on are in fact secure regardless of whether they are produced by a US company from entirely US-made components or they are produced by our allies through an extended and secured supply chain. We cannot simply assume that onshoring will address this risk.
▶ 1:34:10We have seen the risk from trans shship shipment where US companies may think that they are building from chips that did not in fact come from China but those chips may have been transipped from China through Vietnam through Mexico or through another country. And a drone or other device that you may think is secure and is US and Americanmade may have a risk inside it that even the company that manufactured it does not know about.
▶ 1:34:35That's why it's critically important that we invest in the ability not only to produce these goods domestically and with our allies, but also be able to identify and recognize when these supply chains have been compromised and when there are back doors or logic bombs or other threats embedded in these systems. I think we can envision a future in which we have trusted supply chains, but to get there, we need much stronger government action.
▶ 1:35:04Chairman Vandrew, to your point about a more expensive Chinese system, I think what we are seeing today is that typically Chinese suppliers are often cheaper, but in some cases they in fact have better capability than some US produced goods. And so what that will mean on the market is that companies are going to purchase the cheaper good, particularly if it is more effective than an Americanmade good.
▶ 1:35:31I was part of a longunning what I would call a whispering campaign against Huawei to say that Huawei's technology shouldn't be trusted. It shouldn't be put in our core infrastructure. The FBI did briefings. We did briefings at the NSC. What finally worked was banning that technology and then for the rural broadband telecommunications providers that were incapable of investing to replace that subsidizing that investment.
▶ 1:35:58We need a far broader approach like that to the categories of technology that China is dominant in today. And we need to develop and invest in the ability to verify that the replacement technologies produced in the United States are in fact secure and have not been compromised. Thank you for this opportunity.
▶ 1:36:20Thank you, Mr. Kaki. All good, good statements. I'm going to ask you all to rise to be sworn in. Raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the testimony you are about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief. So help you God.
▶ 1:36:43You may be seated.
▶ 1:36:44Point of order, Mr. Chairman.
▶ 1:36:46Does that apply also to testimony they've already given?
▶ 1:36:48Correct. Thank you for that. I And that does apply to the testimony you've already given. What the ranking member is pointing out in his gen gentle way is I should have done that at the very beginning when you started your testimony. So that's a good point. Thank you. With that being said, we are going to begin with the questions and I am going to start with the gentleman from Missouri, Dr. Ander.
▶ 1:37:21Uh thank you, Mr. chairman. So over the past decade, federal agencies and infrastructure operators have embedded softwaredriven electrical equipment throughout America's roads, ports, rail systems, and power networks. Through this rapid modernization, we have quietly opened a dangerous national security vulnerability.
▶ 1:37:49foreign manufactured hardware uh now sits at the core of systems that keep the American economy running and the military moving. Nowhere is the threat more acute than in the power sector. Chinesemade inverters, batteries, and transformers have become foundational to the power grid and critical infrastructure. The components are designed, built, and in some cases remotely controlled by firms operating under the authority and influence of the Chinese Communist Party.
▶ 1:38:20As a result, the CCP is increasing increasingly positioned to monitor, disrupt, or the infrastructure that underpins US commerce, public safety, and national defense. Uh, Mrs. Dea Breer, uh, can you explain why it is inherently um dangerous for US roads, ports, and rail systems to rely on electric electronic components manufactured in China, particularly when those components are embedded deep inside operational systems?
▶ 1:38:51Yes, sir. Three main reasons from the informationational perspective. The first is that those components give China access to critical American information. Who is traveling, where, when, how. That's like a personal privacy risk, but it's also a strategic asset. We're in a competition where data is the new oil. Um, data is the single most dominant resource in the great power competition with China.
▶ 1:39:14If Beijing has full information on our society, that's how it can target all of its That's thing number one. Thing number two is China can shape information. If information is fueling transportation and you can shape information, you can decide who's moving where, when, what, you can pick winners and losers. What company, shipping route, um, software add-on is going to win. And that means that Beijing controls our society.
▶ 1:39:40And then there's the disruption threat. So all of these two things are short of any like outright conflict scenario that's just happening. Then there's if China decides it's time, they can shut off our systems. They can interfere with our systems. um they can destabilize our this is so that'sformational threat. On top of it, there's just a basic supply chain and industrial threat. China can stop providing these components. We're trying to build new infrastructure or modernize infrastructure. We're at their mercy.
▶ 1:40:11Plus, our industrial base depends on being able to produce these critical goods. Our country depends on having an industrial base. Our economy depends on that. If we forfeit that to China, there goes American growth and freedom.
▶ 1:40:24So what categories of US infrastructure like EV charging stations, tolling stations, rail signaling, port cranes, traffic man management systems currently depend on foreign manufactured electronic hardware. And I'm afraid you're going to say all the all of the
▶ 1:40:41All of the above.
▶ 1:40:43And at so many levels too that we aren't aware and you mentioned inverters. No one's talking about inverters. That's a huge risk to the grid.
▶ 1:40:50Um, so all of those sectors, every sector, data centers, optical transceiver, we're building them at rapid scale. Optical transceivers are necessary for data centers. We increasingly depend on those for so many other industries. What if China shuts those off?
▶ 1:41:05I was at a energy conference in Houston a few months back and uh someone one of the speakers talked about Chinese-made batteries. you know, any any kind of reliance on on so-called green energy, wind or solar is going to rely on massive battery charging capability or even one's, you know, the the electrical panel on one's roof, private private home would depend on a battery and apparently a large percentage of these are being made in
▶ 1:41:35communist China right now. And those could in theory be remotely, you know, flipped off or even remotely made to overheat causing electrical or even electrical fire or even explosion risk. So, um, Mr. Cole, I see you nodding. Any uh comments on on this?
▶ 1:41:54Um, Congressman, I was just discussing with the other witnesses before the hearing that there are virtually no cyber security standards around electric vehicles as a category, whether that be batteries that can communi communicate directly perhaps with China um or or other cyber security standards of the of the self-driving components of the vehicles. You can imagine a world where United States is trying to mobilize for a conflict and suddenly um EVs are blocking roads
▶ 1:42:20It's frightening. Thank you. I yield I thank the gentleman uh the gentleman from Georgia.
▶ 1:42:28Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Hostile foreign nations like China are targeting critical infrastructure here in America and Donald Trump is enriching himself with money from China while weakening United States programs that protect us from their security threats.
▶ 1:42:46For example, the Chinese government and its statecontrolled entities spent over $5.5 million at Trump owned at Trumpowned properties during the first Trump But in this second administration, it's the greed and corruption is A Chinese company recently announced that it would buy up to $300 million of President Trump's cryptocurrency.
▶ 1:43:17And coincidentally, the Trump administration is systematically weakening our defenses against China's security threats. Um, Miss uh Dea Bruier, would you agree that the US needs to be the number one country for uh artificial intelligence?
▶ 1:43:37I would agree with that. And you would agree also that Nvidia chips power the Nvidia or the AI revolution. Correct.
▶ 1:43:48They are among the components that power the AI revolution. Yes. And does it surprise you that um Trump has discarded America's strategic technological edge over China in so far as AI chips by changing the rules and allowing the export of Nvidia's AI chips to
▶ 1:44:14I think what surprises me the most
▶ 1:44:16Does that surprise you? I think what surprises me the most is that we don't actually have an edge in AI chips over China anymore.
▶ 1:44:24Okay. All right. So, you want to take me in a different direction?
▶ 1:44:28Yes, sir.
▶ 1:44:28Let me I don't want to go in the direction you're trying to take me.
▶ 1:44:32Um so, I'm going to now ask Mr. Cole. Um Mr. Cole. Um Elon Musk and his Doge Musketeers benched hundreds of cyber security professionals at the Cyber Security and Infrastructure Agency, also known as CISA, and uh at the National Security uh nearly a third of CISA staff was cut including divisions
▶ 1:45:03that coordinated with states and businesses which provide key assistance for transportation infrastructure. Was that a wise move by uh Trump?
▶ 1:45:14Well, first Congressman, I'm a native Georgian, so it's a pleasure to meet
▶ 1:45:17Well, good to meet you, too, sir.
▶ 1:45:18I've always wanted to um to answer your question, I do think now is not the time to be cutting CISA's budget or
▶ 1:45:24That was a bad move. Uh his budget request to Congress now includes an additional 18% cut to CISA's cyber security division uh which leads efforts to protect government networks and helps defend critical infrastructure. Was that a good move or a bad move?
▶ 1:45:45Congressman, if you go around the country and talk to uh state cyber leaders, they will all tell you they would like additional federal support
▶ 1:45:52to respond to cyber attack. It was a bad I think that's probably what you're trying to say. But let me ask you, Mr. uh Naki, uh we've seen our foreign exploit cyber vulnerabilities against our communications, energy, and water sectors, among others.
▶ 1:46:13Uh but it may be easy to discount national security risk to our transportation infrastructure because we haven't yet seen widespread consequences in this field. While embedded technology like undisclosed radios in batteries and planes and cranes clearly shows that our adversaries may have the capability to conduct espionage or even cause outages in transportation infrastructure when local governments or private companies are acquiring
▶ 1:46:43technology, they may be willing to overlook the national security risk in favor of getting technology that they need more quickly or for cheap or cheaper. Does the fact that we haven't yet seen a major cyber attack against our transportation infrastructure mean that we don't have to worry about this national security threat?
▶ 1:47:04And uh it comes at a time when uh uh Trump's net worth increased by $3 billion over last year with this security threat. Does it mean we we uh need to be worried or do we have cause for concern as the president gets richer?
▶ 1:47:26and our security is eroded.
▶ 1:47:31Sir, we've absolutely seen uh campaigns carried out against our transportation infrastructure for the purposes of collecting intelligence and for the purposes of planning future attacks. What we haven't yet seen is significant disruption of that infrastructure because the geopolitical moment in which our adversaries would want to take advantage of that has not uh emerged
▶ 1:47:54Thank you. I yield back.
▶ 1:47:58I thank the gentleman on the yield five minutes to myself and this is to Mr. Spear. How does weakened enforcement of federal CDL and English proficiency requirements undermine safety on American roads? And tell me if you agree this should be viewed as a national security and rule of law issue rather than just a regulatory problem.
▶ 1:48:23Well, I think the criteria, the standards that you're speaking to come from the United States Department of Transportation handed down to the states. states administer the tests. Some states do it very well and there's a handful that aren't. And we've seen over the last few years a whole host of CDLs gets issued to people that shouldn't have them. Candidly, first, they may not be here legally. They may not be able to speak or understand English.
▶ 1:48:49They shouldn't be operating an 80,000lb heavy duty truck moving freight across the country. So those standards and the relationship between the federal and state government is absolutely essential to make sure that all states are doing the same thing on those
▶ 1:49:05If if I was to ask you, federal CDL and English proficiency standards have been consistently enforced. Am I being fair when I say that some of the fatal crashes we discussed today probably could have been prevented?
▶ 1:49:19There's absolutely no question. Your opening statement covered several crashes that we've also watched very closely. A lot of the folks that you cited in those accidents, those drivers were not able to speak English, understand English, probably should never have been driving in the first place. They were issued CDLs when they shouldn't have had them. You don't want people like that behind the wheel of a 40tonon US truck. I would think. Thank you. I'm going to ask you a rapid fire question here.
▶ 1:49:45And if you agree we do need to do more, if you could catch up with us and get information to me, what I'm going to ask is, do you believe in the United States of America we need to do anything legislatively? Does Congress need to do something to make us more safe and more secure? Very briefly, I'm going to ask all of you, so we got to go quickly, but uh Miss Stella Griier.
▶ 1:50:10Yes, absolutely. And one number one lowhanging fruit stopping an unforced error is with any federal incentives or procurement having actually enforced stringent restrictions on the ability of Chinese or Chinese influenced entities with clear rules of what those are to receive them.
▶ 1:50:27So I know you don't write bills but if you could get us that information get it to my office and also to the committee of what you saw you know this bill this bill you know kind of give us your priorities on that. Mr. Cole
▶ 1:50:39um uh yes Mr. Chairman, I do believe Congress needs to act in a few ways. First, I believe United States Cyber Command needs additional um authorities in order to be able to operate at the speed with which our adversaries are. I believe Congress must do more legislatively to uh increase uh our resiliency against cyber attacks to some degree. We have to assume that nation state adversaries have already compromised our infrastructure. And that means giving states the ability to more quickly respond to threats as they emerge.
▶ 1:51:09that could mean additional funding or clearer frameworks. And finally, as I I agree with Mrs. Da Breer that um we should uh take a legislative approach to data sovereignty as well.
▶ 1:51:20Please get that to my office, both of you, as quickly as you could. Thank you, Mr. Spear.
▶ 1:51:27I think uh on the English language proficiency, we would advocate for the American Trucking Associations that Congress fully codify English language proficiency for all drivers. that all states should test for this consistently across the board. And and this is this is a safety issue. If you're operating a vehicle, you shouldn't be pulling a U-turn on the Florida Turnpike. You should be able to understand weather signs and say Wyoming. Uh you you need to understand English.
▶ 1:51:54You need to be able to operate that equipment safely around the motoring public. Congress needs to codify this to ensure that all 50 states abide by this and aren't just handing CDLs out carelessly to people that shouldn't be driving a 40 ton
▶ 1:52:07Thank you. Please get that to my office as well. Mr. Kaki,
▶ 1:52:13I would say the most important thing from my perspective is to fill gaps in regulatory frameworks so that we have comprehensive ability to oversee regulation in this space.
▶ 1:52:25Thank you. I will yield back the rest of my time and with that I will yield to the ranking member of this committee, Miss Jasmine Carrot.
▶ 1:52:34Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. I will point out that being a bad driver doesn't necessarily have anything to do with whether or not you can speak English. I also will point out that I've had the privilege or maybe not so much the privilege of driving in multiple countries. Um, and I was not required to get another license. I was able to rent cars in other countries and drive because some things are kind of universal.
▶ 1:53:00Um, and frankly, if somebody passes the test as it's laid out, then I think that that's kind of what it is. If we need to change the test, then we need to change the test. But nevertheless, um, one of the things that has become clear over the past year is that this president can be bought. If you have enough money, you can get favorable regulations from this White House.
▶ 1:53:22You can get pardons, you can get contracts, and you can get influence with this president even if you have ties to a foreign government, which the Justice Department has described as, and I quote, a significant risk to US national security. So, we've already established that the Trump administration has shown a blatant disregard for our cyber security.
▶ 1:53:43In his first month in office, the president dismantled nearly all of DHS's advisory committees that study major cyber attacks and provide actionable recommendations to defend against those attacks. So, Mr. Kanaki, what role did these advisory committees play in protecting our critical infrastructure? How does their dissolution make us less safe?
▶ 1:54:06Thank you, Ranking Member Crockett. Um absolutely these committees were essential to establishing the mechanisms for coordinating and collaborating on cyber security with our industry They were necessary but not sufficient. They laid the groundwork for the kind of real time collaborative engagement that has been emerging over the last five years.
▶ 1:54:29We've gone from having just these discussions on policy and risk and threat to actually working with government agencies with CISA, with NSA, with Cyber Command and the FBI.
▶ 1:54:44So, if I'm to understand you correctly, you believe that they were necessary, but you believe that they weren't even sufficient in their current form. So, if anything, you believe that they should have been beefed up, not deleted. Correct. There's absolutely a need to expand these collaborative mechanisms with industry and to make them real time and substantial. Yes.
▶ 1:55:02Now, I represent the state of Texas, which is the largest exporting state in the country. Texas has 32 official ports of entry that serve as critical gateways to global trade. Mr. Kanaki. As you probably know, 80% of cranes at US ports are manufactured by a Chinese state-owned entity, and the government has found communication devices embedded on these cranes that could be used to track port activity and enable cyber espionage.
▶ 1:55:31What concerns are raised when the technology used inside a critical infrastructure system is manufactured by a foreign adversary? In in the case of these devices, what we're talking about is an ability to both monitor and control and disrupt the infrastructure should it be in China's interest to do so. So, it's an absolutely critical risk that we be able to maintain our trade uh in the event that they feel they are compelled uh to use that capability.
▶ 1:56:00The focus here in in my view needs to be retrofitting. At this point, we don't need to replace the steel that holds up the cranes. I think we're certain that's pretty strong. What we need to do is replace the electronics, rip and replace the electronics and operate them with trusted hardware and trusted software that we know is not communicating back to China.
▶ 1:56:20The costs associated with operating technology needed for critical infrastructure are increasing. It doesn't help that the Trump administration's policies are partly responsible for the cost increase. However, states are weighing the cost and availability of the technology they need to operate and maintain their critical infrastructure. There aren't domestic manufacturers for many of these necessary machines such as cargo ships or port cranes. Um, let me add to this.
▶ 1:56:48We did have the Chips and Science Act and my predecessor in Congress was actually the one that ushered that through. that was to make sure that we could manufacture more chips right here domestically. And it is so unfortunate because there were so many plans and there were so many that were saying we are going to take advantage of this bill and pull down on these dollars. And now those plans have fallen by the wayside because of some of the terrible tariff policies that currently are taking place.
▶ 1:57:16It is harming us not only economically but it is harming us from a security standpoint. this was not fiscal responsible um policy that this administration has engaged in but it's also been very harmful to us domestically. Um so the last question is so what solutions are there to mitigate the risk posed by foreign technology and infrastructure supply chains?
▶ 1:57:40I think we badly need to make a government investment in the retrofitting of these technologies. the markets simply are not going to support this investment on their own given that these are national security risks and not risks that are necessarily going to be borne by shareholders of companies.
▶ 1:57:58Thank you so much for your time. I'll yield back.
▶ 1:58:01Thank the ranking member. I would just make one minor point that probably when she was driving in those foreign countries, she wasn't driving an 18-wheeler. I could probably guarantee that. Well, I'm hoping not. Um, I know I couldn't even drive one, but the CDL requirements are much more specific and and much harder. Do you have a CDL? I don't have a CD.
▶ 1:58:21I may have I got
▶ 1:58:22You could you could
▶ 1:58:23I got a license to carry. I'm sure.
▶ 1:58:25So do I. [laughter] So do I. Um, so you never know. But uh, with that, I think we have the gentleman from Texas has a UC request.
▶ 1:58:35Yep. I'd like to ask for unanimous consent to enter into the record uh this report the weaponization of SIZA how a cyber security agency colluded with big tech and disinformation partners to censor Americans
▶ 1:58:48without objection and I will ask the gentleman to go forward and present testimony questions.
▶ 1:58:54Y thank thank you Mr. Chairman for for holding uh this hearing. In 2016, the Obama Biden administration issued internal guidance that weakened enforcement by discouraging roadside interviews and out of service penalties, effectively nullifying a core safety rule without changing the law.
▶ 1:59:15Since that time, fatal truck crashes have increased and multiple deadly incidents have involved non-domiciled or non-English proficient drivers who should have never been licensed or allowed to operate in the first place. In many cases, they shouldn't have even been in this country in the first place. The Trump administration has moved to restore the rule of law by rescending the guidance.
▶ 1:59:37And even Democratled leled states such as California couldn't hide the damage inflicted by the radical Democrats open borders policies and revoked 17,000 commercial driver's licenses given to illegal aliens. Um, thank you witnesses for for taking the time to be here. Mr.
▶ 1:59:55Spear, do you consider the Obama Biden administration 2016 rule guidance which discouraged out of service enforcement for English proficiency failures to be a breakdown in regulatory control over a critical transportation sector? I do. That decision cost lives.
▶ 2:00:15And respectfully, Congressman Crockett, the accident that was cited in chair's opening statement killed people because that driver did not understand what he was doing. And an 80,000lb vehicle is much different than a car. It does not stop on a dime. It doesn't turn on a dime. These are very heavy vehicles that have to have people trained and skilled to operate them. and they need to understand the language we speak here in America. That's English.
▶ 2:00:44I've lived and worked in five continents, driven in all five. Arabic, Chinese, you name it. You have to understand that country's language to understand how to operate a vehicle. It's for the safety of those around you. So that 2016 decision by the Obama administration took the lives of innocent people because it put people out on the road behind the wheel of an 80,000lb vehicle that should never have been driving. We need stronger enforcement.
▶ 2:01:14That rule has been on the books since the 30s. It should be consistent no matter what party you are. If you care about the safety of people driving in your district, then this needs to be enforced in all 50 states evenly. It's simply fundamental and there is absolutely no compromise when it comes to safety. We don't hedge on any of that. So, I want to be very clear. We need to enforce it. It needs to be done by every state. Needs to be done evenly.
▶ 2:01:43And yes, the language does matter. You're you're exactly right. It does cost lives. It costed the life of the son of one of my constituents. A little over two years ago ago, 8-year-old Baron Richie of Pilot Point, Texas, was killed on I I35 near Hillsboro when a wheel hub and tires broke off a semi and struck the Richie family's SUV as his mother drove him home from a school trip.
▶ 2:02:12The non-English-speaking illegal alien Martin Monreal Alvareedo had overstayed a B1 v uh visitor visa that expired 6 months prior to the incident. Further, Monreal Alvaredo was party to RTD Carriers Trucking Company, an entity with an abysmal Federal Mo motor carrier safety administration record.
▶ 2:02:33RTD carriers employed other foreign drivers as well without valid work visas and sent Montreal Alvareo on an unlawful route beyond the US Mexico Canada agreement commercial zone. And the reality was if even one of these issues had been policed Baron Richie would still be with us today. Mr.
▶ 2:02:53Spear, what can Congress do to confront unsafe carriers such as RTD from closing and reopening under a new name, reusing the same dangerous equipment and dangerous personnel? Well, certainly work with your colleagues in the Transportation Infrastructure Committee to give the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration at DoD the authority it needs to clean up the registry. Okay, we have people come on, off, on, off. They have an accident, they come back on, they change their name. This system is broken.
▶ 2:03:23The federal oversight and ability to manage the motor carrier populace properly, safely, is broken. Secretary Duffy understands that they're going back to the basics and enforcing the laws that you've given them where there are shortfalls. You all in Congress need to step up and give these agencies the power they need to have interstate commerce standards applied equally in all states. These are just fundamentals.
▶ 2:03:50When you take a test in a state like California for a CDL, you need to be able to speak English. You need to be here illegally. You need to have training to acquire the CDL, not some online one-day source and you get the CDL. This has got to be in force. I look to Congress to work with DOT to shore that up.
▶ 2:04:09I can guarantee if you call over there now, they will give you a list of things that we support that will help them ensure that alla states take steps forward to ensure that lives like that are not lost.
▶ 2:04:21I agree, Mr. Spe Mr. Speaker. Uh, learn English or get out of our country. Thank you for being here. Appreciate it.
▶ 2:04:29I thank the gentleman from Texas. That concludes today's hearing.
▶ 2:04:33I've got a UC.
▶ 2:04:36Okay. [laughter] Um, Doge employees shared social security data. Court filings show employees detailed to the Social Security Administration shared sensitive data through a nonsecure server. The Justice Department to close. This is from the New York Times, January 20th,
▶ 2:04:52Without objection.
▶ 2:04:53And my final one is federal review finds 44% of US trucking schools don't comply with government rules nearly, this is from December 1st of 2025. This is the AP. It says nearly 44% of the 16,000 truck driving schools in the US may be forced to close if they lose their students after a review by the federal transportation department found they may be may not be complying with the government requires. It did not say anything about languages.
▶ 2:05:22Without without objection.
▶ 2:05:24Okay. Now
▶ 2:05:25that concludes today's hearing. We thank our witnesses for appearing before the subcommittee today. I thank you all. You did a great job. Looking forward from correspondence from all of you. Without objection, all members will have five legislative days to submit additional written questions for the witnesses or additional materials for the record. Without objection, this hearing is