WASHINGTON — The nation’s largest trash pickup and landfill operator is seeking an exemption from federal drug testing and other regulations that would cover 21,000 of its truck drivers if approved.
Waste Management Holdings (WM), an affiliate of Waste Management Inc. (NYSE: WM), has told the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration that certain driver qualification and Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse requirements overseen by the agency pose a unique problem due to the company’s numerous subsidiaries.
The exemption could help WM more quickly respond to communities following emergencies and natural disasters, according to the company.
“WM utilizes legally compliant centralized qualification and drug and alcohol screening processes for all of our drivers, but under current federal rules, our drivers must repeat processes they have already completed for WM to transfer them between its related companies when needed for emergency-related reasons,” WM told FreightWaves in an email statement.
“Processes include completion of new employment applications, background and driving checks and drug screenings, which can significantly delay response times.
“If approved, this exemption would avoid the unnecessary delay of re-qualification and allow WM drivers to immediately drive for any WM motor carrier to quickly assist communities in times of critical need.”
WM’s fleet, which includes more than 12,000 natural gas trucks that the company claims to be the largest heavy-duty natural gas truck fleet of its kind in North America, currently operates under 83 different U.S. Department of Transportation registration numbers.
The company explained in its application that in order to respond to surges in demand for its haulage services, drivers are often temporarily transferred to different locations, which frequently means driving a truck registered under a different DOT registration.
In WM’s case, the time the driver works for the transferee carrier is rarely less than seven days, which is the maximum time allowed by a company to take advantage of a driver qualification exemption currently on the books.
Such driver qualification requirements include motor carriers submitting to FMCSA their drivers’ employment history, contacting their drivers’ previous employers for accident reports and obtaining their medical examiner certificates.
WM “must therefore require transferred drivers to complete new employment applications, contact previous employers, run new motor vehicle records, query the Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse, analyze whether pre-employment drug testing is necessary and perform testing if required, and create new qualification files, all of which can take several days to complete and may delay or deter the transfer,” FMCSA noted in opening WM’s exemption application for public comment.
WM told FMCSA that it maintains an equivalent level of visibility into the driver qualification and drug and alcohol status of its drivers throughout the company through a centralized policy and document system that operates across all its affiliated carriers.
The company stated in its application that its request is not unusual. It pointed out that FMCSA granted a related exemption to Los Angeles-based Motion Picture Compliance Solutions (MPCS) seeking relief from FMCSA’s Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse requirements on behalf of a consortium of trucking companies. MPCS’ five year exemption expires in 2025.
