Drivers Will Need To Register In Drug And Alcohol Clearinghouse To Change Jobs

Joe DeLorenzo, FMCSA’s director of compliance and enforcement, spoke Thursday at the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Kentucky.

The federal CDL Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse, which will be a database of truck drivers who have failed or refused a drug or alcohol test, takes effect in January 2020, and drivers intending to transition to new jobs or ensure a clean record within the Clearinghouse will need to register as users.

Joe DeLorenzo, director of enforcement and compliance of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, spoke Thursday at the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Kentucky, alongside Larry Minor, FMCSA’s associate administrator for policy.

The Clearinghouse will record all drug test failures conducted for pre-employment screenings, random drug tests and post-crash tests, says DeLorenzo. Carriers will be required to submit failed tests to the Clearinghouse, and they’ll be required to query the database before hiring drivers to ensure they haven’t failed a drug test in the previous three years.

Driver drug and alcohol test database to be required check for carriers by 2020 Driver drug and alcohol test database to be required check for carriers by 2020 Set to publish Monday, a final rule establishing the Clearinghouse database will require carriers to search the database during the pre-employment process and for current ...

The onus will be on drivers to register within the Clearinghouse so that they can consent to allowing carriers to query the database for their records, says DeLorenzo. Registration is slated to begin in October, he said, and it is required for any driver looking to a new driving job in January 2020 and later.

Though registration and consent to queries are only required when a driver is beginning a new job, DeLorenzo encouraged all drivers and owner-operators to register as users to ensure their testing information is accurate. Also included in the Clearinghouse will be whether drivers completed the return-to-duty process if they have failed a drug test.

Only positive tests will be filed to the clearinghouse, and no information will be available about negative tests, he said. But should any inaccurate information be uploaded to the Clearinghouse, registered users will know and can file a DataQ request to correct it.

For independent owner-operators, however, registration isn’t as much a necessity, since they’re not part of hiring processes.

The Clearinghouse rule was finalized in 2016 after Congress mandated the rule within the 2012 MAP-21 highway law.