Maryland residents will again have to prove they are legal residents to get a driver?s license in 2010, and the license will cost them at least $15 more to comply with federal regulations, state transportation officials told a Senate committee Tuesday.

But some members of the Senate Budget and Tax Committee pressed the administrators to restart the practice even sooner. “Why are we so much more lenient than surrounding states?” asked Sen. Lowell Stoltzfus, R-Lower Shore. “We know we have a problem, and until 2010, we?re not going to do anything about it.”