FMCSA Orders Staff to Respond to Three More CDL School Appeals

FMCSA issued three nearly identical orders on October 1, 2026, directing the Director of its Office of Safety Programs to respond within 10 days to administrative-review petitions filed by three commercial driver's license (CDL) training providers that the agency had removed from its Training Provider Registry on an emergency basis.

The orders cover CDL Training of Tampa LLC of Tampa, Florida (Docket No. FMCSA-2026-3240); Prime Truck Driving School LLC of Fresno, California (Docket No. FMCSA-2026-3241); and ELDT Direct LLC of Riverside, California (Docket No. FMCSA-2026-3242), according to the orders posted to Regulations.gov.

Each company filed its petition under 49 CFR 380.723(d)-(e), the regulation that lets a training provider challenge an emergency removal from the Training Provider Registry — the federal list of schools and instructors approved to deliver entry-level driver training (ELDT) that new CDL applicants must complete before taking a skills or knowledge test. CDL Training of Tampa filed its petition on September 2, 2026; Prime Truck Driving School and ELDT Direct each filed on September 3, 2026, the orders state.

Chief Safety Officer Steven Dowling signed all three orders on October 1, 2026. Each order directs the Office of Safety Programs to submit the official notice of emergency removal and all evidence FMCSA considered in deciding to remove the respective petitioner, within 10 days of the order's service date. The orders do not disclose the underlying reasons for the removals or identify what evidence the agency relied on.

FMCSA's Office of Chief Counsel, through attorney Romana A. Lavalas of the Enforcement and Litigation Division, is representing the Office of Safety Programs' director in all three matters, the certificates of service show. Copies of the orders were also filed with DOT Docket Operations in Washington.

The three orders follow the same template FMCSA has used in other recent registry-removal disputes, requiring the agency to lay out its evidentiary record before the administrative review proceeds.

What it means

Carriers, driving schools and prospective CDL holders should treat Training Provider Registry status as unsettled for these three schools until the review process concludes. Students who trained with a provider later removed from the registry may face delays if their training records cannot be verified against the registry at the time of certification. Other training providers facing emergency removal can look to these filings as a template for how the administrative-review process under 49 CFR 380.723 unfolds, including the 10-day evidence-production clock FMCSA has now set for itself in three parallel cases.

What's next

• 2026-10-11 (approximate, 10 days after the October 1, 2026 service date): FMCSA's Office of Safety Programs is due to submit the removal notices and evidentiary record in all three dockets.

• Watch dockets FMCSA-2026-3240, FMCSA-2026-3241 and FMCSA-2026-3242 on Regulations.gov for the agency's responses and any subsequent rulings on the petitions for administrative review.

• No hearing dates or final decisions have been scheduled in any of the three matters as of the orders' publication.

Sources

• Other: In the Matter of CDL Training of Tampa LLC - Order Requiring Response to Petition for Administrative Review of Emergency Removal from Training Provider Registry — Regulations.gov (FMCSA), 2026-10-01

• Other: In the Matter of Prime Truck Driving School, LLC - Order Requiring Response to Petition for Administrative Review of Emergency Removal from Training Provider Registry — Regulations.gov (FMCSA), 2026-10-01

• Other: In the Matter of ELDT Direct, LLC - Order Requiring Response to Petition for Administrative Review of Emergency Removal from Training Provider Registry — Regulations.gov (FMCSA), 2026-10-01