FMCSA Opens the CDL Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse

In January 2020, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) switched on the Commercial Driver's License Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse. The agency announced on January 6, 2020 that the online database was operational and that registration was open at clearinghouse.fmcsa.dot.gov.

Congress required the database in the MAP-21 highway law, and FMCSA wrote the details into a final rule published December 5, 2016. The goal was simple: give employers, FMCSA, state licensing agencies and enforcement officers a real-time way to see which CDL and commercial learner's permit (CLP) holders had broken federal drug and alcohol testing rules and were barred from safety-sensitive work until they finished the return-to-duty process.

Who had to register

According to FMCSA's January 2020 announcement, registration was required for:

• Employers of CDL and CLP holders, or the service agents they designate, along with medical review officers, to report drug and alcohol program violations that happened on or after January 6, 2020.
• Employers running queries, who first had to buy a query plan, and only through the Clearinghouse website.
• Drivers, who had to register to give consent when an employer wanted to run a pre-employment check or another full query, or when they wanted to see their own record.
• Substance abuse professionals, who report completed initial assessments and when a driver becomes eligible for return-to-duty testing.

Registration itself was free. FMCSA said drivers did not have to sign up right away, but would need an account before they could respond to an employer's consent request.

What changed for carriers

The 2016 rule required employers to query the Clearinghouse before hiring a CDL driver and to run a query on each current driver at least once a year. It did not replace the old paperwork right away. Under the rule, carriers still had to ask previous employers for a driver's drug and alcohol testing history until the Clearinghouse had been running for at least three years, because the database started with no records from before January 6, 2020.

Reporting duties applied to violations that happened on or after January 6, 2020, so the database could not show older violations. For those, the previous-employer check remained the source.

Practical points from the launch

• Owner-operators were not left out. The 2016 rule said a driver who owns a company, whether it has one driver or many, must meet both the employer and the employee Clearinghouse requirements.
• Drivers who planned to change jobs were better off registering early, because a hiring carrier could not complete a full pre-employment query without the driver's consent.
• Registration and background information was posted on the Clearinghouse website, which noted that the database covered drivers subject to the drug and alcohol testing rules in 49 CFR Part 382.

Archive: this article describes rules and events as of January 2020. Regulations may have changed since, so check the current rule before relying on it.