Federal Railroad Administration Control of Alcohol and Drug Use: Random Rates 2017

For Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Employers required to comply with the random testing requirements of the Federal Railroad Administration Department of Transportation’s Part 219 Control of Alcohol and Drug Use Regulations, the random rate remains at 25% for drugs and 10% for alcohol for all covered employees except Maintenance of Way (MOW) covered employees.
See: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2016-12-23/pdf/2016-31009.pdf

For the year 2017, when the FRA Maintenance of Way Final Rule goes into effect on June 12, 2017, Maintenance of Way employees must be tested at a 50% random rate for drugs and a 25% random rate for alcohol. The rulemaking states that this is because there is a “lack of data to gauge the extent of the drug abuse” for MOW employees, similarly to when the random testing program began for the rest of the Federal Railroad covered employees.
See:  https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2016-06-10/pdf/2016-13058.pdf

It is important that all FRA covered employers with MOW employees consider this random rate difference in the random rate in their random testing program administration.

Article published in Substance Abuse Testing