The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration reminded employers on August 20, 2019 that its Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse would become part of every covered pre-employment driver investigation from January 6, 2020. An annual check would not substitute for that new-hire query. Under the already-published rule, an employer needed a full query with the driver’s specific consent before employing that driver in a covered safety-sensitive role. For a small carrier, collecting that consent belonged in the hiring schedule, not after a driver started the work. [S1][S2]

The full query mattered because it released the information held in the Clearinghouse, rather than simply saying whether a record existed. Before an employer could access those records, the driver had to provide electronic consent through the Clearinghouse. Section 382.703 prohibited an employer from allowing safety-sensitive work if the driver refused the required consent. The distinction was practical: obtaining a general consent form for limited searches was not the same as completing the full-query consent step for a prospective driver. [S2]

Annual screening had a narrower starting point. The rule allowed an employer to use a limited query, with driver consent that could cover more than one year. That search disclosed whether information existed, not the information itself. If it found a record, the employer had to conduct a full query within 24 hours. Missing that window meant the driver could not continue safety-sensitive work until the full query was completed and its results confirmed no applicable prohibition. A limited-query hit therefore called for another check; it did not by itself establish the driver’s status. [S2]

Outsourcing the query did not remove every employer task. FMCSA’s August notice said an employer using a consortium or third-party administrator still had to purchase its own query plan before that administrator could search on its behalf. The administrator could not buy the plan for the employer. At the time of the notice, plans were scheduled to become available for purchase in fall 2019. [S1]

The initial workflow also included keeping records. The published rule required employers to retain each query and the information returned for three years; it separately required retention of limited-search consent for three years after the last query. The rule’s provision allowing a valid Clearinghouse registration to fulfill the query-record requirement was dated January 6, 2023, not the January 2020 compliance start. For the initial period, having access to the database did not replace the employer’s own query records. [S2]

Source documents

  1. Clearinghouse Query Plan Detailshttps://clearinghouse.fmcsa.dot.gov/Learn/News/Item/query-plan-details
  2. Commercial Driver’s License Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse — Final Rulehttps://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2016-12-05/html/2016-27398.htm