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05/11/2010 - ODAPC Publishes Notice of Proposed Rule Making on Alcohol Testing Form

The Department published a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) proposing to extend the date for mandatory use of our recently updated Alcohol Testing Form (ATF) to January 1, 2011.

On February 25, 2010, the Department published a final rule revising the ATF. The mandatory use date for the new form is August 1, 2010. After publishing the February 25 revisions, we learned that vendors and users of the ATF will not be able to deplete their current supply of ATFs by August. Therefore, we propose only to extend the date for mandatory use.

Comments can be posted to the docket [Docket # OST–2008–0088] at www.regulations.gov. Comments are due by May 26, 2010.

04/30/2010 – HHS Guidelines Effective Date Changed to October 1, 2010

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a Final Rule changing the effective date of the Revisions to the Mandatory Guidelines for Federal Workplace Drug Testing Programs (Mandatory Guidelines) from May 1, 2010, to October 1, 2010.

The purpose of the HHS Final Rule is to notify participants in Federal and federally-regulated workplace drug testing programs as soon as possible that they will not be expected to implement the revisions to the Mandatory Guidelines on May 1, 2010, so that they do not unnecessarily expend resources to comply on May 1, or risk compliance problems by prematurely implementing new provisions.

As you know, on February 4, 2010 the Department of Transportation issued Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) proposing to align our regulated-industry drug testing with the HHS laboratory drug testing requirements. The 60-day public comment period for the NPRM officially ended on April 5, 2010, with late filed comments considered to the extent practicable.

The comments to our NPRM are very important to us, and we review and consider each and every one of them very carefully.
That process takes some time, as does the process of deciding upon and writing the contents of a final rule. The HHS decision to change the effective date of the Mandatory Guidelines should enable us to issue our rulemaking in time to meet the October 1st date.

03/09/2010 - PHMSA Issues Stay of Enforcement: Drug and Alcohol Program Reporting

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration issues a stay of enforcement regarding the reporting of CY 2009 drug and alcohol testing data. Click here to read all the details.

02/25/2010 - Today in the Federal Register, the DOT has published three Drug and Alcohol Program Final Rules:

1. One rule adopts in total an Interim Final Rule authorizing employers to disclose to State commercial driver licensing (CDL) authorities the drug and alcohol violations of employees who hold CDLs and operate commercial motor vehicles (CMVs), when a State law requires such reporting. This rule also permits third-party administrators (TPAs) to provide the same information to State CDL licensing authorities where State law requires the TPAs to do so for owner-operator CMV drivers with CDLs. Therefore, it represents no change to our current regulations.

2. A second rule updates two important DOT forms – the U.S. DOT Alcohol Testing Form (ATF) and the Management Information System (MIS) Data Collection Form:

- While use of the new ATF is authorized immediately, its use is required by August 1, 2010.

i. Updated Paperwork Reduction act Burden Statement;

ii. New DOT form number;

iii. Addition instructions on the reverse side of page 3; and

iv. Results box text is smaller font and have been moved.

- The new MIS form is authorized for use in 2011 to report calendar year 2010 MIS data.

i. Updated Paperwork Reduction act Burden Statement;

ii. New DOT form number;

iii. MIS instructions changed "RSPA" to "PHMSA."

3. The third regulation adopts in total an earlier Interim Final Rule’s procedures for using an alcohol screening device. Therefore, it represents no change to our current regulations.

You can obtain more information about these three rules on our Part 40 Federal Register Publications page.

02/01/2010 – DOT Publishes Notice of Proposed Rulemaking

Published in today’s Federal Register is the DOT Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM). The NPRM is designed to align our regulated-industry drug testing with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) laboratory drug testing requirements.

DOT is required by the Omnibus Transportation Employees Testing Act to follow the HHS requirements for the testing procedures/protocols and drugs for which we test.

Primary laboratory proposals include:

- Testing for MDMA (aka. Ecstasy);

- Lowering cutoff levels for cocaine and amphetamines;

- Conducting mandatory initial testing for heroin; and

- Authorizing employers to use HHS-Certified Instrumented Initial Test Facilities to conduct initial drug testing.

We also propose bringing a number of our testing definitions in-line with those of HHS.