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FMCSA renews exemption for motion picture group
FMCSA has renewed an exemption from a portion of the agency’s Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse requirements for drivers in the motion picture industry. This is a dangerous decision that could cost lives while benefiting very few people.
For those who are not up to speed with these terms, the FMCSA is the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, a part of the Department of Transportation whose function is the keep the roads safe from people with health problems who drive CDL-regulated trucks (Class A, B, and C licenses, as well as regular people [Class D] who drive vehicles that are commercial but don’t meet the criteria of needing a certified A, B, or C licensed driver). These are the people who give me my rules, regulations and guidelines in my profession.
The Drug Clearinghouse is the group who store information about CDL-holders who fail random drug and alcohol testing. Once you fail these drug and alcohol exams it is a laborious process to get out of the clearinghouse but while you are in the clearinghouse (3 years) you cannot legally drive a commercial vehicle in the US. You can get out of the clearinghouse earlier but, as noted, it is a laborious process.
A notice of the exemption renewal was published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, May 20. Doing so, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration exempted DISA Entertainment Compliance Solutions – formerly known as Motion Picture Compliance Solutions – from the requirement that an employer can’t employ a driver who is subject to drug and alcohol testing until a full query of the Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse has been conducted.
The group, instead, asked for an exemption that would allow it to conduct a limited query of the Clearinghouse before one of its member employees hires a driver for a project. If the limited query discovered the driver was in the Clearinghouse, the driver would not be allowed to perform safety-sensitive functions until a full query determined that the driver was not prohibited from operating a commercial motor vehicle.
In 2020, FMCSA granted the group – then known as Motion Picture Compliance Solutions – a five-year exemption that runs through May 28.
As part of the original exemption request, the group said that the motion picture industry employs a pool of 12,000 drivers who work for multiple employers. The group added that the requirement to conduct full queries would increase the number of production days and add millions of dollars of increased production costs to operate in the United States.
The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) opposed the 2020 exemption request, saying that a driver working for multiple employers was a big part of the reason the Clearinghouse was created.
To explain: the independent truckers opposed letting people who fail drug and alcohol testing move around employers in the motion picture industry and avoiding the clearly-stated instruction that these people are dangerous to the trucking industry and well as the general public. The FMCSA gave an exemption in 2020 and did it again recently.
“This type of scenario was one of the reasons the Clearinghouse was enacted,” OOIDA wrote. “So drivers with drug/alcohol violations cannot simply move around to different carriers. Waiving the pre-employment full query requirements may prevent carriers from accessing necessary hiring information and allow drivers with drug/alcohol violations to return to the road before proper evaluation and treatment is completed.”
In the more recent round of comments, FMCSA received five from those supporting the exemption and one opposed.
“The agency continues to believe that the exemption will not jeopardize safety because the employer and/or their consortium/third-party administrator must conduct a full query if the limited query shows that information about the driver exists in the Clearinghouse,” FMCSA wrote. “A driver’s specific consent for the full query would be provided electronically in the Clearinghouse as required under the existing regulations.”
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