New standards for an age-old rule are being implemented for hair, as truckers are being told to check their locks for any traces of drug use. Furthermore, the White House is getting involved.
A rewrite of the rule is creating a fresh standard for truckers to get behind when they want to test drugs. It has since been received by the White House's Office of Management and Budget. Their horse in this race? It's up to them to look over the changes and see what guidelines can be adjusted.
The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs is helping the OMB with the review, with up towards 90 days of time to handle the guidelines as they're proposed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
In the past, OIRA has believed themselves to be integral to the revision process by helping "promote adequate interagency review of draft proposed and final regulatory actions, so that such actions are coordinated with other agencies to avoid inconsistent, incompatible, or duplicative policies."
This seems to be the standard for the industry to be so professional. Case-in-point, Robin Hutcheson, the chief of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, had expressed to attendees at the Truckload Carriers Association annual meeting to keep their peepers peeled and the headlights on highbeams for new guidelines in the Summer.
These new hair-test guidelines, which could be approved after a public comment period, are likely going to be the basis for a new rule for the FMCSA as the second attempt at handling the proposal well.
The last time truckers rebelled against hair testing? That was later on during Trump's Reign.
It wasn't very well-appreciated by the bigger trucking companies in addition to owner-operators as well as laborers.
There are already so many companies that screen drivers with hair and therefore care for everyone else to follow that example out of necessity. The initial proposal as a result wasn't as strict as it should be, as it still let other testing options through.
Huge truckload carriers like J.B. Hunt and Schneider National are interested in only hair testing instead of having to test for urine and saliva.
There had been warnings on the original HHS proposal of how alternative specimen tests wouldn't make roads safer since studies display the facts in the "drug detection window" through hair is any longer.
Labor Unions and Small-Business Truckers oppose the HHS' own proposal. While there had still been privacy, the glaring truth of it all is how cost and more concerns weigh out bringing hair into federal workplace drug-testing requirements, therefore allowing more room for inconvenient error.
Todd Spencer, the president and CEO of the OOIDA or the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, had a controversial take on this. “Just because a small percentage of trucking companies opt to screen their drivers using hair testing does not mean the process should be mandated for the entire industry." He believed that companies resorting to this may not in turn be implementing the most necessarily mandated ideas.
Regardless, hair testing for truckers is still a top priority for the OIRA.
