Trucking Alliance: Denial of Hair-Testing Exemption Provides ‘Clear Highway Map’ – Security & Compliance

Proponents of hair-testing for federally required drug testing of truck drivers have had one other setback with the denial of a petition to the Federal Motor Provider Security Administration … Or have they?

In a discover scheduled to be printed within the Federal Register Dec. 23, FMCSA introduced its choice to disclaim a request for a waiver from The Alliance for Driver Security & Safety, also called the Trucking Alliance.

The Alliance needed its motor provider members to obtain an exemption from the Federal Motor Provider Security Rules to amend the definition of “precise data” to incorporate the employer’s data of a driver’s optimistic hair check, which might require such outcomes be reported to the FMCSA Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse and to inquiring carriers.

The Trucking Alliance provider members embrace Cargo Transporters, Dupre ́ Logistics, Frozen Meals Categorical, J.B. Hunt Transport; KLLM Transport Companies, Knight Transportation, Maverick Transportation, Schneider, Swift Transportation, US Xpress, and Could Trucking Firm.

These carriers consider that hair testing enhances public security by offering an extended detection window for managed substance use and by minimizing the chance for fraud within the at present mandated urine specimen assortment course of.

As a result of hair testing is extra dependable and correct than urine testing, stated the Alliance’s petition, it’s the “applicable drug testing technique for preemployment and random testing protocols.”

FMCSA analyzed the appliance and public feedback and decided that the company lacks the statutory authority to grant the exemption request.

The denial provides the Alliance “a transparent street map,” stated Lane Kidd, managing director of the Trucking Alliance, in an e mail to HDT.

“FMCSA would not query the deserves of hair testing, solely that it doesn’t but have the authority to grant the appliance,” Kidd defined. “When HHS points a closing hair testing rule subsequent 12 months, FMCSA can have its authority, and may embrace hair check outcomes into the clearinghouse below its definition of an employer’s precise data of a truck driver’s drug use. When FMCSA completes its personal rulemaking, employers will have the ability to drop urine testing in favor of solely the hair check. So, we anticipate to lastly obtain our goal subsequent 12 months.” 

Why Hair Testing?

As TruckSafe Consulting President Brandon Wiseman defined in an article, many carriers, together with those that filed this petition, have been utilizing hair testing as a complement to their DOT testing course of.

“In different phrases, they go above and past what the rules require of them by conducting non-DOT hair checks along with the DOT urinalysis checks,” he stated. “That is permissible below the rules, as long as the hair checks are along with the urine checks. If considered one of these hair checks returns a optimistic outcome however the urine check is destructive, the provider can take motion to terminate or self-discipline the driving force below its personal unbiased authority because the employer, however it can’t report the results of that check to the Drug/Alcohol Clearinghouse or to future employers of that driver, since it’s not an authorised check sort.”

The Alliance contends that not having these checks within the Clearinghouse negatively impacts security, permitting drivers to cheat on urine checks or to abstain from medicine lengthy sufficient to cross the pre-employment check.

In October, the Alliance launched outcomes of analysis it performed on the effectiveness of hair versus urine checks. The research examined variations between hair and urine drug check outcomes by sampling 172,632 pre-employment hair and urine drug screens that have been administered in 2021 by seven provider members of the group.

“If taking part carriers didn’t use hair testing, they seemingly would have employed 3,959 drivers that failed hair checks,” stated the group in an announcement. “It’s seemingly these people are actually driving for one more provider, given hair testing outcomes can’t be submitted to the drug and alcohol clearinghouse.”

“Eleven occasions extra truck drivers fail a hair check for unlawful medicine than the DOT-required urine check,” stated Kidd in that announcement. “That equals hundreds of truck drivers. And DOT would not know their names.”

The Lengthy Highway to Hair Testing Approval

When FMCSA printed the discover of the Alliance’s request for a waiver, the company stated it at present lacks the statutory authority to grant the Trucking Alliance’s request for exemption as a result of the Division of Well being and Human Companies has not but issued closing Obligatory Pointers for hair testing.

In 2015, the Fixing America’s Floor Transportation Act (FAST Act) required HHS to difficulty scientific and technical tips for hair testing, no later than one 12 months after this act. HHS lastly issued a proposed rule in 2020, broadly criticized by hair-testing proponents.

The proposed guidelines would enable using hair testing for pre-employment and random testing. Nonetheless, the proposal would require the gathering and testing of not less than one different specimen sort, comparable to urine or oral fluid.

Utilizing a urine check to corroborate is not the reply, stated critics. On the time of the HHS 2020 proposal, P. Sean Garney, vice chairman, Scopelitis Transportation Consulting, instructed HDT, “Congress required HHS to develop this rule as a result of our urine-based drug testing system is definitely defeated. Hair testing isn’t. The issue is that this proposal actually solely permits using hair testing to determine destructive checks. All optimistic checks should be confirmed utilizing the system Congress was searching for to enhance.”

Of their feedback filed on the discover, the Trucking Alliance and a number of other of its member corporations stated nothing within the federal statute prohibits FMCSA from implementing what Congress particularly directed the Secretary of Transportation to do — acknowledge hair testing as a suitable different to urine testing.

The DOT additionally has proposed including oral testing to the authorised drug-testing strategies.