FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, December 14, 2000
Contact: Ben Langer
Tel.: (202) 366-5571
DOT 238-00
U.S. Transportation
Secretary Slater Announces Department=s
Revised Drug and Alcohol Testing Rule
U.S. Transportation Secretary Rodney E. Slater today
announced that the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has revised its drug
and alcohol testing rule, which affects employees of transportation companies
who occupy sensitive safety positions, an action that will further enhance the
safety of the nation’s transportation, make the testing process easier to
carry out and provide additional safeguards for employees.
“Safety
is President Clinton and Vice President Gore’s highest transportation
priority, and this revised drug and alcohol rule will help make our
transportation industries safer,” Secretary Slater said. “It also makes an
important and technically complex safety program easier for everyone to
understand and use, while reducing both compliance costs and paperwork.”
The rule resulted from a coordinated effort by the Office of the Secretary, six
DOT operating administrations – the U.S. Coast Guard, Federal Aviation
Administration, Federal Railroad Administration, Federal Transit Administration,
Research and Special Programs Administration, and Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration -- and transportation employers, labor organizations, and drug
and alcohol testing service providers. The
department published a proposed rule a year ago.
The department received over 400 written comments from interested
individuals and organizations. DOT
also held three public listening sessions in March 2000 throughout the country
to gather additional comments.
The
rule issued today amends the department’s regulations, first issued in 1988,
to require drug testing of employees in sensitive safety positions in the
aviation, motor carrier, rail, transit, maritime and pipeline industries.
Alcohol testing was added to the requirements in 1994.
The following are some of
the changes from current requirements:
-
To
ensure fairness to employees, a medical review officer – who is a
physician -- will review the test results when a laboratory indicates that
an employee’s specimen may have been adulterated or substituted.
Any employee will also be able to obtain, at a different certified
laboratory, a test of his or her split specimen -- so called because
specimens are split into two separate containers to allow for retesting
-- to make sure that the original laboratory did not make an error.
Because of the potentially significant impact on the employee
following an adulterated or substituted specimen result report, the
requirements for physician review and access to testing of the split will
be implemented 30 days after publication of this rule.
This is consistent with the procedures currently used for drugs of
abuse.
-
Validity testing,
which is designed to deter and detect attempts to adulterate or substitute
specimens, will continue to be voluntary on the part of the employer
utilizing current procedures. When
the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which regulates
drug-testing laboratories, finalizes its mandatory procedures for validity
testing, DOT will publish a notice in the Federal Register making
validity testing mandatory in the transportation industry.
This process will ensure greater uniformity and consistency of
testing in all laboratories.
·
Employers may apply to the
appropriate DOT operating administration for a waiver allowing them to
temporarily remove employees from performing safety-related tasks while the
medical review officer is deciding whether there may be a legitimate medical
explanation for a positive result from a laboratory. The conditions for
obtaining a waiver include an important measure to continue to protect
employee confidentiality and to allow an employee to be paid during this
period.
·
Contract service providers (often
called consortia or third-party administrators) will be authorized, to a
greater extent than previously, to transmit information such as drug test
results to employers.
·
There is a new “public interest
exclusion” provision in the rule which allows DOT to protect the public from
the actions of service providers – firms that conduct tests under contract
to transportation companies -- that violate the department’s rules.
This provision includes significant due-process protections to ensure
that the process is fair.
·
There are enhanced training
requirements for drug and alcohol testing personnel. This measure is designed to refine procedures for collectors
and breath alcohol technicians to increase their effectiveness, to ensure
accurate tests, to ensure that all medical review officers have current
technical and regulatory information and training, and to ensure that
substance abuse professionals across the country are consistent in their
evaluation and assessment of employees who tested positive in the first round
of testing for drugs or alcohol.
The majority of the new rule goes into effect Aug.
1, 2001, to give employers and businesses time to learn about its provisions
before moving to compliance. A few
provisions, such as medical review officer review of suspected adulterated or
substituted specimens, the split-specimen review procedures for validity
testing, and the public interest exclusions provision, will go into effect 30
days after publication.
The new rule will be
published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, December 19, in part 2 of that
day’s issue. The document will be
posted in the department’s Docket Management System, which is accessible
on-line at http://dms.dot.gov, docket
OST-99-6578. It also may be found
at http://www.dot.gov/ost/dapc.
A copy may be obtained by calling the fax-on-demand telephone line,
(1-800-225-3784) and requesting document 151; by writing to the U.S. Department
of Transportation, Office of Drug and Alcohol Policy and Compliance, 400 Seventh
Street, S.W., Room 10403, Washington, DC 20590; or by calling the Office of Drug
and Alcohol Policy and Compliance at (202) 366-3784.
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Briefing
Room