Its not all that clear. The Patriot Act directs the Attorney’s General to take certain actions. It is not clear to me that the Act does not give the states the power to charge appropriate fees to comply with the act. Where is a state to get the funds to comply, the tooth fairy.
The Act compels the Attorney General to conduct the background investigation. The state does not bear that cost at all. The state is not conducting the investigation. So what are they charging him for… tooth fairy fees?
Who bears the cost of conducting the background check? The state most process the forms and comply with the directives of the Attorney General. All this is added beaurocratic expense. The state must do it for free?
Even if you are correct Bricker, your sarcasm and snark (snarkasm?) would have been better addressed to the OP’s state for passing it along to him, and not the OP for reasonably assuming they were passing along the cost to him because of the PA. Not everybody’s a lawyer, you know.
All of this is beside the point. hlanlee feels that having a cloass A is a benefit to him ala added value to prospective employers and he wants this benefit to be conferred to him by the state for free. The state can set and charge professional lisence fees. They raised the fee due to the added cost of compliance with the Patriot Act. Whether the Act itself compels the fee is irrelevant if the state upped the cost as a result of the act then it raised the fee because of the Act.
Certainly you’re not accusing Bricker of moving the goal posts! Such a thing is unprecedented!
-Joe
Agreed. I think I have a knee-jerk reaction now to criticisms of the Patriot Act, in large part because state and local agencies are using it as a scapegoat. But you’re right – the average listener, when a state official says, “This is mandated by the Patriot Act,” reasonably believes it. It is asking too much to expect people to have a copy on the thing on hand and refute such claims.
He can have his Class A license with no extra fee. Per the SC DMV the fees are only for hazardous materials endorsement, not a standard Class A license.
And if the state simply used the EXCUSE of the Patriot Act to raise fees unrelated to their actual increased costs?
I’ve read the OP over and over again, and I’m still not seeing where people are picking up that the OP is complaining about the Patriot Act tacking on a fee to the background check. I’m pretty sure it’s two separate complaints. Complaint one is that the Patriot Act requires a background check. This is what he is told in the quote below. Complaint two is that he is expected to pay for this out of his own pocket.
hlanelee will correct me if I’m mistaken, but I’ve been getting the impression that I’m reading a different OP than some of you.
What commercial flight schools are in the Middle East (which is what I assume you mean)? Nearly all commercial (and a great deal of Western military) flight training is done in the United States. Even British Airways sends many of its pilots to schools in the US for training. If there are not sufficient schools in Britain, what logic implies that flight training is widely available in the Middle East?
The 9/11 hijackers came to the United States for flight training because it is the only place in the world that such training is widely available to anyone with enough money to pay for the instruction.
Does anyone know what type, if any, checks on a person’s criminal or medical background were done on CDL hazmat drivers pre Patriot Act? Is this new requirement going to catch a lot of people who shouldn’t be getting licenses for non-terrorist reasons?
You are right, I am complaining about having to pay the fee. I have nothing to hide, they can check on me all they want.
And Cheesesteak crushrun or limestone, a common base material is hazmat, you need endorsement to carry it. The same with diesel fuel and you don’t do much with heavy equipment without that. The CDL without hazmat endorsement is pretty much useless. I prepared and took the test and I will renew it when need be.
SP2263 the CDL was created to require drivers to meet certain standards and the physical was one of the most important, it should probably be required for any driver’s license.
Also, even though I only have a peripheral intrest in the trucking industry I am sure that no trucking company could stay in business for long letting just anyone drive hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment and cargo thousands of miles. I am sure that employers already spend much time and money on background checks of potential employees. It just makes sense.
Some of them were on the FBI’s watch list though. Problem was, the agents who knew we had flight students who weren’t supposed to be in country were dissuaded from reporting those students. Our intelligence and law enforcement agencies still don’t play together very well.