The Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles will start issuing enhanced driver licenses on Feb. 17, according to a news report in the Burlington Free Press.
The new documents will cost $25 more than traditional licenses and enable cardholder to cross the Canadian border without a passport book. After June 1 no one will be able to enter the United States by land from Canada without a passport, a passport card or an enhanced driver’s license.
In related news nearly 740,000 Americans have ordered passport cards, the new document being offered by the State Department to speed border crossings by U.S. citizens traveling to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean, according to an Associated Press report.
The new documents are called for under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which requires all citizens of the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Bermuda to have a passport or other accepted document that establishes the bearer’s identity and nationality to enter or depart the United States from within the Western Hemisphere.
The EDL uses a long-range RFID chip that can be read from 15 to 20 feet away. The chip contains no information other than a number that acts as a pointer to a record on a secure database that will contain the cardholder’s photo and other biographic information.
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