Company asks FMCSA for Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse exemption due to ‘administrative burden’

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) received an exemption request from a trash and recycling company for regulatory relief from certain Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse requirements.

The FMCSA received an exemption request from Waste Management Holdings, Inc. (WMH) for relief from Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse requirements when drivers are transferred among two or more WMH carriers with different USDOT numbers.

According to FMCSA documents, WMH employs tens of thousands of commercial vehicle drivers among affiliate companies operating under 83 different USDOT numbers.

Each time WMH transfers a driver between affiliate carriers, they are currently required to ask transferred drivers to complete new employment applications, contact previous employers, run new motor vehicle records, query the Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse, analyze whether pre-employment drug testing is necessary and perform testing if required, and create new qualification files.

“WMH asserts that the existing driver qualification and drug and alcohol testing rules fail to contemplate the types of intercompany driver transfers that WMH’s operations necessitate, leading to severe administrative inefficiencies, record duplication, and an inability to respond timely to surges in demand for waste removal, which often occur following natural disasters, public health emergencies (such as the recent COVID pandemic), mass gatherings or events, infrastructure failures, community clean-up efforts, industrial accidents or spills, or regional disruptions,” the FMCSA notice stated.

WMH is asking the FMCSA for relief from the administrative burden of re-qualifying already- qualified drivers every time they are reassigned among related WMH motor carrier affiliates.

The FMCSA will accept public comment on the exemption request.

You can view the FMCSA notice here when it is published in the Federal Register on August 22.