Articles Discussing The Department Of Transportation.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has published a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) on changes to the hours of service (HOS) rules.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Clearinghouse will become operational on January 6, 2020, and FMCSA-regulated employers must be ready to comply with the Clearinghouse requirements on that date. The FMCSA Clearinghouse is an electronic database that will contain information about commercial motor vehicle drivers’ drug and alcohol program violations. Although the Clearinghouse rule actually took effect on January 4, 2017, the implementation date for FMCSA-regulated employers is January 6, 2020. See 49 CFR Part 382, Subpart G, among others.

Executive Summary: The Department of Transportation (DOT) and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) published a flurry of announcements to close out 2017. In addition to recapping several previous publications, the FAA released a new Advisory Circular on its voluntary disclosure reporting program.

Effective January 1, 2018, employers with employees subject to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s drug-testing regulations will face new and broader testing obligations based on a Final Rule issued in November 2017.1 This month, in various web-based guidance, DOT clarified what changes, if any, covered employers must make to their DOT testing program policies. This article will discuss DOT’s new requirements and what transportation employers can do to prepare for these new obligations.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration announced December 8, 2017 that during calendar year 2018, the minimum random drug testing rate will be increased to 50%.

The drug testing panel utilized by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s operating agencies will change on January 1, 2018. (Click here to read our blog post on that change). DOT published guidance on December 1, 2017 to assist employers with regard to updating their drug and alcohol testing policies. The guidance states as follows:

Executive Summary: On November 13, 2017, the Department of Transportation (DOT) announced that it is amending its drug-testing program to require testing for synthetic opioids. The new DOT regulations now harmonize with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Mandatory Guidelines for Federal Workplace Drug Testing Programs using Urine (HHS Mandatory Guidelines), published January 23, 2017.

Employers regulated by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) should revise their drug and alcohol testing policies to conform to new DOT regulations that added four “semi-synthetic” opioid drugs to the DOT drug testing panel. The new regulations go into effect on January 1, 2018.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration announced in a rule to be published in the Federal Register on November 13, 2017, that it will expand its drug testing panel to include four synthetic opioid drugs: hydrocodone, hydromorphone, oxycodone and oxymorphone.

On December 2, 2016, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced a final rule establishing a new “Commercial Driver’s License Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse.” The Clearinghouse will provide a central database identifying violations of DOT’s drug and alcohol testing program by drivers who operate vehicles that require a commercial driver’s license (CDL), and information about whether such a driver has successfully completed the DOT-mandated return-to-duty rehabilitation processes. Creation of the Clearinghouse was mandated by the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act, a 2012 Congressional transportation funding initiative.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration (“FRA”) recently announced a final rule expanding drug and alcohol testing applicable to maintenance-of-way (“MOW”) employees, effective one year from the date of the rule’s publication (which has yet to be announced).