Kill the kill switch: Chip Roy pushes amendment to kill Biden car-surveillance mandate
The vehicle kill switch may be getting another chance to be killed in Congress this week as a member of the House Rules Committee wants to repeal legislation that directs automakers to install surveillance technology on all new vehicles starting in 2027.
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, a committee member and influential congressman on the conservative House Freedom Caucus, says the Biden-era mandate poses “a direct threat to our Fourth Amendment rights.”
“Republicans should not be continuing a blatantly invasive Biden-era policy that enables round-the-clock monitoring of Americans in their own cars,” Roy told The Daily Signal while the possibility of the amendment was still being discussed by the Rules Committee.
“That’s why I introduced an amendment to FISA to eliminate the ‘kill switch’ and stop this Big Brother technology from being built into new vehicles.”
This is Roy’s second attempt at killing the kill switch this year.
We’ve forced amendment votes on this repeatedly but Republicans block it. Your car is unaffordable and you are not free. As Attorney General I will sue to defend you against these infringements on your rights. https://t.co/hcMmFmsT5L
— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) April 25, 2026
The need for an amendment already has large support from House conservatives, including Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky.; Scott Perry, R-Pa.; and Keith Self, R-Texas.
“The government should never have the ability to remotely kill your car or anything else you own,” Self told The Daily Signal. “When a group of us conservatives in the House tried to repeal this Joe Biden-era mandate set to take effect next year, 57 Republicans teamed up with 211 Democrats to stop us. That’s unacceptable.”
Federal law says new cars after 2026 must monitor drivers and shut down if the car disapproves. Your dashboard should not be judge, jury, and executioner.@RepScottPerry @RepChipRoy offered an amendment to defund the automobile kill switch mandate. Here’s our debate: pic.twitter.com/ZYvAHCs5e7
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) January 22, 2026
The kill switch mandate comes from the HALT Drunk Driving Act (Sec. 24220 of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act), which Democrats passed with support from 19 Republican senators and 13 Republican representatives.
The text of the bill requires installing technology to monitor drivers’ performance, passively detect blood alcohol, or detect impairment.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving supported this 2021 bipartisan bill. The organization claims that once the technology is in place, it will save 10,000 people a year from drunk driving incidents. According to the group, the technology is not a government tool and will be “passive,” operating without the driver needing to do anything.
The HALT Act required the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to publish a draft of the mandate for the technology by 2024. In 2023, the agency reported that technology didn’t exist yet to comply with the federal mandate. As of January 2026, the agency has not completed the required draft, which was originally due in 2024.
Conservatives are already facing a fight over the FISA reauthorization bill, as many Republicans, including congressional leadership, do not want to reform the bill to require warrants to investigate American citizens.
[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]