What exactly does Section 24220 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act require, word-for-word?
Executive summary
Section 24220 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is the statutory provision titled "Advanced Impaired Driving Technology" that instructed the Secretary (via DOT/NHTSA) to promulgate a mandatory motor vehicle safety standard for passive, advanced impaired-driving prevention systems within a set timetable and to phase in compliance by manufacturers; the exact, word‑for‑word statutory subsection text is not present in the provided reporting snippets, which instead summarize the core requirements and timelines and point to the official law texts (Congress.gov, GovInfo) for the full verbatim language [1] [2] [3].
1. What the law is called and who it directs — headline requirement
The statute appears in Title as Section 24220 and is explicitly titled "ADVANCED IMPAIRED DRIVING TECHNOLOGY" or "Advanced Impaired-Driving Technology" in multiple official summaries and analyses, and it directs the Secretary (through DOT/NHTSA) to establish a national safety standard requiring passive impaired-driving prevention technology in new passenger vehicles [1] [4] [5].
2. The key timing mandate quoted in reporting
Reporting and the NHTSA report-to-Congress extract the central timing instruction: "not later than 3 years after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall issue a final rule" to establish the standard — that phrase appears in the NHTSA summary of the statutory directive and is the clearest verbatim fragment available in the provided sources [1].
3. What the technology requirement means in practice (as reported)
Multiple advocacy and legal-analyst sources explain that the provision requires passive systems that can monitor a driver for impairment — including measuring blood alcohol concentration or other performance-based indicators — and that if impairment is detected the system must "prevent or limit the operation of a motor vehicle" by the driver or otherwise intervene, language reflected in coverage by MADD and legal analyses summarizing the statutory intent though not reproducing the whole statutory text verbatim in the provided snippets [6] [5] [7].
4. Manufacturer compliance timetable summarized by analysts
Industry and legal summaries report that after DOT/NHTSA issues the final rule the statute phases in compliance: manufacturers would have a specified number of years after the rule's effective date to make the technology standard equipment on new vehicles — reporting commonly cites compliance windows of two and three years after rule finalization as the staged deadlines recounted in analyses [5].
5. Congressional and legislative context, plus pushback or repeal attempts
The section was enacted as part of Public Law 117–58 (the IIJA) on November 15, 2021 and has since attracted legislative attention including bills seeking repeal or amendment — for example, the "Safeguarding Privacy in Your Car Act of 2022" and later proposals explicitly referencing repeal of Section 24220 appear in the Congressional text of subsequent bills, indicating political controversy around privacy and technical feasibility [8] [9] [10] [11].
6. Where to find the verbatim statutory language (limitation and direction)
The precise, word‑for‑word statutory language of Section 24220 is contained in the IIJA text on official sources; the full enacted text is available at Congress.gov (H.R.3684 text) and in the GovInfo/Pub. L. 117–58 compilations — the provided reporting snippets do not include the entire verbatim subsection, so the exact word-for-word statutory wording should be read on those primary-document pages [2] [3] [8].
7. Alternate viewpoints and implicit agendas in reporting
Advocacy groups like MADD frame the section as a life‑saving mandate for passive alcohol-detection systems, industry and privacy advocates have raised concerns about technical readiness, false positives, and data privacy, and some legislators introduced repeal measures citing privacy and consumer-technology worries — these competing frames are visible in the advocacy summaries, legal analyses, and proposed repeal bills cited in the coverage [6] [5] [9].