Agency Information Collection Activities: Request for Comments of a Previously Approved Information Collection: Procedures for Transportation Drug and Alcohol Testing Programs, 64262-64264 [2013-25272]

Agencies

• DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
• Office of the Secretary

[Federal Register Volume 78, Number 208 (Monday, October 28, 2013)]
[Notices]
[Pages 64262-64264]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2013-25272]


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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

Office of the Secretary

[Docket No. DOT-OST-2013-0131]


Agency Information Collection Activities: Request for Comments of 
a Previously Approved Information Collection: Procedures for 
Transportation Drug and Alcohol Testing Programs

ACTION: Notice and request for comments.

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SUMMARY: In compliance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 
U.S.C. 3501 et seq.), this notice announces that the Information 
Collection Request abstracted below is being forwarded to the Office of 
Management and Budget for review and comments. A Federal Register 
Notice with a 60-day comment period soliciting comments on renewing the 
same information collection was published on July 12, 2013 [78 FR 
41974]. There were three responses to the docket with a total of seven 
comments. Two of the respondents were consortium/third party 
administrators from the trucking and pipeline industries, and one 
respondent represented a collection site that performs DOT urine 
collections and pre-employment medical exams. Our responses to the 
respondents' comments are explained in this notice and the supporting 
statement to OMB.

DATES: Comments must be submitted on or before November 27, 2013.

ADDRESSES: Send comments regarding the proposed information collection, 
including burden estimate, and suggestions for reducing the burden, to 
the Office of Management and Budget, Attention: Desk Officer for the 
Office of the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation, 725 
17th Street NW., Washington, DC 20503; fax: 202-395-5806, or via 
electronic mail to OIRA_Submission@omb.eop.gov.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Bohdan Baczara, Office of Drug and 
Alcohol Policy and Compliance, Office of the Secretary, U.S. Department 
of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE., Room W62-317, 
Washington, DC 20590; 202-366-3784 (voice), 202-366-3897 (fax), or 
bohdan.baczara@dot.gov (email).

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 
    OMB Control Number: 2105-0529.
    Title: Procedures for Transportation Drug and Alcohol Testing 
Programs.
    Type of Request: Renewal of a Previously Approved Information 
Collection.
    Background: Under the Omnibus Transportation Employee Testing Act 
of 1991, DOT is required to implement a drug and alcohol testing 
program in various transportation-related industries. This specific 
requirement is elaborated in 49 CFR Part 40, Procedures for 
Transportation Workplace Drug and Alcohol Testing Programs. This 
request for a renewal of the information collection for the program 
includes 43 burden items among which are the U.S. Department of 
Transportation Alcohol Testing Form (ATF) and the DOT Drug and Alcohol 
Testing Management Information System (MIS) Data Collection Form.
    The ATF includes the employee's name, the type of test taken, the 
date of the test, and the name of the employer. The ATF is essential to 
the alcohol testing program. Data on each test conducted, including 
test results, are necessary to document tests conducted and actions 
taken to ensure safety in the workplace.
    The MIS form includes employer specific drug and alcohol testing 
information such as the reason for the test and the cumulative number 
of positive, negative and refusal test results. The MIS data is used by 
each of the affected DOT Agencies (i.e., Federal Aviation 
Administration, Federal Transit Administration, Federal Railroad 
Administration, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, and the 
Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration) and the United 
States Coast Guard when calculating their random testing rates.
    Estimated Number of Respondents: The information will be used by 
transportation employers, Department representatives, and a variety of 
service agents. Estimated total number of respondents is 2,639,331.
    Estimated Number of Responses: 6,548,043.
    Frequency: The information will be collected annually.
    Annual Estimated Total Number Burden Hours: 678,986

Discussion of Comments to the Docket

    There were three respondents to the docket with a total of seven 
comments. Two of the respondents are consortium/third party 
administrators from the trucking and pipeline industries, and one 
respondent represented a collection site that performs pre-employment 
medical exams and DOT urine collections. Below are our responses to the 
respondents' comments.

Comment

    Most of the respondents expressed support for the Department's use 
of the Alcohol Testing Form (ATF) to be the record of an alcohol test 
and the Management Information System (MIS) form to document an 
employer's DOT testing data. They also supported the Department's 
estimate of burden hours associated with collection and handling each 
of the forms.

DOT Response

    The Department agrees with the commenters' supportive statements 
regarding use of the forms and the calculation of burden hours.

[[Page 64263]]

Comment

    Two of the respondents wondered if the DOT was contemplating an 
electronic ATF in the future and suggested moving away from a paper-
based system.

DOT Response

    The Department has no objection to pursuing establishing the 
framework for an electronic ATF. We are interested in and currently 
working with the Department of Health and Human Services on issues 
related to implementing an electronic Federal Drug Testing Custody and 
Control Form (CCF). We believe that issues associated with the 
electronic CCF will be similar to issues associated with the electronic 
ATF. For these reasons, the Department will explore implementing an 
electronic ATF after an electronic CCF has been implemented.

Comment

    One respondent suggested that we modify the urine collection 
process to permit a portion of the DOT urine sample to also be used for 
other tests.

DOT Response

    Because the comment is not germane to the ATF or MIS form, the 
Department has no response other than to welcome the respondent to 
submit comments on this issue during any future rulemaking involving 
Part 40's urine collections.

Comment

    One respondent, a large C/TPA providing services to the trucking 
industry, recommended allowing ``. . . third-party administrators to be 
part of the remediation process for alcohol tests as is the case with 
controlled substances tests.'' The C/TPA went on to say that the 
current three-part ATF does not provide for the capability for 
employers to rapidly share information leading to a hole in 
recordkeeping and making wrong choices regarding drivers with positive 
test results.

DOT Response

    The ATF is a 3-page form and the drug test CCF is a 5-page form. 
The difference in who ultimately gets certain pages of the form is 
based upon the fact that drug testing utilizes laboratories and Medical 
Review Officers, and alcohol testing does not. Hence, the ATF is 3 
pages, not 5. As in drug testing, copies of the ATF go to the employee, 
the employer, and the BAT [in drug testing, the collector]. It is 
unclear as to what remediation process the respondent is referring. If 
the issue is that of permitting C/TPAs to transmit positive alcohol 
test results to employer, the Department has already an established 
position. The immediate transmission of positive alcohol test result to 
the employer is a safety matter. Because time is of the essence, the 
Breath Alcohol Technician (BAT) is required to immediately transmit the 
result of the confirmation test result (i.e. .020 or greater) to the 
Designated Employer Representative (DER) so the DER can take the 
appropriate action. For these reasons, C/TPAs are not permitted to act 
as intermediaries in transmitting this information to the DER. The 
Department has no reason to believe that BATs have not been 
transmitting or cannot immediately transmit this information to the 
DER.
    With respect to employers making incorrect choices regarding what 
to do with employees who have positive alcohol test results, as a 
service agent, a C/TPA can advise an employer on the regulation. For 
example, a C/TPA can explain that an employer's responsibility is to 
permanently remove an employee from safety sensitive duties when the 
employee has an alcohol test result of .040 or greater. They can also 
advise the employer about actions for results 0.02 through 0.039.

Comment

    One respondent, a C/TPA servicing the pipeline industry, did not 
have any concern over the Department's estimated burden hours for 
either form. That same respondent went on to say that the burden hours 
should include an estimate for data entry into the Drug and Alcohol 
Management Information System (DAMIS) as the DAMIS procedures vary by 
Agency.

DOT Response

    DAMIS is an on-line portal to the electronic MIS form. Because of 
the nature of each transportation industry, each DOT Agency may require 
different log-in and setup procedures to ensure the accountability by 
those entities required to submit MIS information. These administrative 
procedures are external to the actual completion of the MIS form and 
are independent of the estimated time to actually enter the MIS data 
once in DAMIS.

Comment

    One respondent, a C/TPA servicing the pipeline industry, wanted to 
know ``. . . what other uses the Department makes of this data in the 
aggregate and by agency.''

DOT Response

    As the respondent noted, the MIS data is primarily used by the DOT 
Agencies to determine their respective industry's random testing rate 
for the next calendar year. We would like to add that the DOT Agencies 
often use the MIS data for planning audit/inspection strategy as well.

Comment

    One respondent, a C/TPA servicing the pipeline industry, made 
several comments related to minimizing the burden of the collection of 
information on respondents. Their comments focused on the pipeline 
industry and were on issues leading up to the submission of the MIS 
data, such as: (1) The varying request dates for submitting the MIS 
data; (2) the standardization of data entry into DAMIS, as well as 
permitting to upload a data file into DAMIS; (3) standardizing the 
input process for contractors in the pipeline industry; and (4) 
permitting an audit service to log into DAMIS as the employer in order 
to be able to enter contractor data into DAMIS.

DOT Response

    With respect to item 1, it is a well-known fact that the due-date 
for submitting MIS data is set in each of the Agency's regulations as 
March 15 of the following year. A DOT Agency may see the need to extend 
that date to accommodate the stakeholders' request for an extension or 
the DOT Agency may have identified issues that have prevented their 
efforts to provide notice to employers in a timely manner so that 
employers could enter information by the March 15 due-date. In either 
scenario, extending the due-date would not add a paperwork burden to 
employers.
    With respect to item 2, the one DOT Agency referenced in this 
comment as a potential beneficiary of ``data entry standardization'' is 
PHMSA. In particular, it appears the login process for this agency was 
the commenter's primary issue and was characterized as, 
``complicated.'' According to PHMSA, the suggestion to change this 
process for the sake of ``standardization'' may result in unintended 
consequences when there is a misunderstanding of the overarching intent 
of the login process. For PHMSA, each transportation employer--
designated as either an ``operator'' or ``contractor''--is issued a 
unique ``user name'' and ``password'' for purposes of data integrity 
and security. It is important to understand that operators are solely 
accountable for their contractors' ``covered employees'' during the MIS 
reporting year. This means that contractors must provide MIS testing 
data under the banner of each operator for their contractor's covered 
employees when they have

[[Page 64264]]

performed covered functions, at any time and duration, on the 
operator's jurisdictional pipeline facilities. With this operator-
contractor association rule lodged in the programming, DAMIS designates 
contractor login information that is solely and directly associated 
with the operator who has listed them as a ``covered function 
performing'' contractor. DAMIS also captures one contractor employer 
entry as a ``data of record'' for accounting purposes and avoiding 
duplication of data. Eliminating these processes has the possible 
unintended consequence of degrading data security or forcing the agency 
to create a login process that is complicated, requiring additional 
processes such as contractor registration, to assure data integrity.
    The suggestion for developing a process for downloading a DAMIS 
file onto a transportation employer's computer server and then 
uploading it back to DAMIS while laudable is replete with potential IT 
security challenges. Among them are: Providing prescriptive stakeholder 
data entry procedures (especially those with limited computer skills); 
programing challenges associated with each DOT Agency; and agency 
budgetary considerations for developing such programming.
    With respect to item 3, we mentioned earlier DAMIS is an on-line 
portal to the electronic MIS form. Because of the nature of the each 
transportation industry, each DOT Agency may require different log-in 
and setup procedures to ensure the accountability by those entities 
required to submit MIS information. These administrative procedures are 
external to the actual completion of the MIS form and are independent 
of the estimated time to actually enter the MIS data once in DAMIS.
    In the DOT Agency example, PHMSA is being cited as duplicating the 
reporting requirements for contractor employers. Each contractor login 
designation is uniquely associated with the operator employer who has 
identified them in the DAMIS electronic reporting system. This 
reporting association is consistent with PHMSA regulatory mandate 
regarding operator monitoring and reporting requirements under Title 49 
CFR part 199, 199.115 and 245, which address contractor covered 
employees.
    With respect to item 4, while we recognized the value of MIS 
provider service performed by C/TPAs, accommodating them for business 
process efficiency, with a single login, presents significant potential 
risk to maintaining data integrity and security. Moreover, current 
regulations assign accountability and responsibility on the employer 
for MIS reporting.
    With regard to entering multiple contractor MIS data under the 
PHMSA regulation, operator employers, or their designated C/TPAs, 
always had the option of issuing the DAMIS unique user name and 
password to these contractors, and then allowing them to enter their 
data directly into DAMIS. This option is utilized effectively with DOT/
FTA grantees/grantors, which allows for shared responsibility for this 
MIS information. In similar fashion, the pipeline safety operator 
employer, or their designated C/TPA, can monitor contractor employers' 
submissions for data review and approval. Utilizing this process could 
alleviate the number of contractor MIS data has to be physically 
entered by operator employers or their C/TPA.
    Public Comments Invited: You are asked to comment on any aspect of 
this information collection, including (a) Whether the proposed 
collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of 
the functions of the Department, including whether the information will 
have practical utility; (b) the accuracy of the Department's estimate 
of the burden of the proposed information collection; (c) ways to 
enhance the quality, utility and clarity of the information to be 
collected; and (d) ways to minimize the burden of the collection of 
information on respondents, including the use of automated collection 
techniques or other forms of information technology.

    Authority: The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995; 44 U.S.C. 
Chapter 35, as amended; and 49 CFR 1:48.

    Issued in Washington, DC, on October 1, 2013.

    Authority and Issuance.
Patricia Lawton,
DOT PRA Clearance Officer.
[FR Doc. 2013-25272 Filed 10-25-13; 8:45 am]
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