WHEREAS, the Biden Administration’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) directed the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) to issue a rule that requires new passenger vehicles to have “advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology”; and

WHEREAS, this requirement amounts to a vehicle kill switch mandate as early as 2026, and Section 24220 of the IIJA requires all newly manufactured vehicles to be equipped with technology to passively monitor driver performance and to prevent vehicle operation including using eye movements, real-time breath detection, hands on steering wheel, and lane position; and

WHEREAS, vehicle kill switch technology’s stated aim is to detect “impaired” drivers (which is not defined in statute), enabling the federal government to track every American’s vehicle – in order to know whether a person is suspected of being impaired, whether or not the driver is actually drunk or impaired – and this technology will allow surveillance of American citizens without a warrant, destroying our right to privacy, instituting unconstitutional tracking, and imposing other civil rights violations; and

WHEREAS, a kill switch can pose frightening safety concerns: cutting off power to a moving vehicle poses grave risks to both the driver and other cars when the driver needs to pull off the road suddenly, and would cause drivers and passengers to be stranded, alone, and vulnerable on the side of the road with a totally disabled vehicle; and

WHEREAS, 31 states allow for court-mandated ignition interlock devices (IID) to prevent drivers from starting their vehicles without first passing self-administered breathalyzer tests, and therefore, there is no need for another federal mandate; and

WHEREAS, the 2024 Republican Party of Texas “End Federal Overreach” Legislative Priority explicitly advocates “resisting unconstitutional federal acts and mandates that restrict transportation, including mandatory kill switches in vehicles”; now

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Republican Party of Texas demands that our state and federal lawmakers prohibit a government-mandated kill switch or other device designed to cease a vehicle’s operation remotely; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Republican Party of Texas demands that our state and federal lawmakers proceed with urgency to protect Americans’ Constitutional rights by stopping this federal mandate and prohibiting installation of kill switches into American vehicles.