GAO report: DOT needs to ‘do more’ to publicize drug and alcohol testing data

The U.S. Department of Transportation should make several changes to the way it reports drug and alcohol testing data, including evaluating how testing data is verified and promoting its website where the data is publicly reported.

Those recommendations come via a new report by the Government Accountability Office, which was published Wednesday, March 17. The report notes that the agency has taken steps verify and publicize its drug and alcohol testing data, but that it should “do more.”

The GAO’s report recommends that the agency begin evaluating the processes the modal administrations use to verify testing data, disclosing known limitations in the website’s publicly reported testing data, and reaching out to the public to promote the website and evaluate the benefits and costs of other possible improvements. DOT concurred with our recommendations.

Since 1988, DOT has regulated the process by which employers in the different transportation industries (aviation, trucking, rail, transit, pipeline, and maritime) are required to test their employees for drug and alcohol use. Employers must self-report these test results annually to DOT or when requested by DOT. In a 2018 statute, Congress required DOT to publish the aggregate drug and alcohol testing data on DOT’s website and included a provision for GAO to review the website and these data.

The GAO report examined three things:

• How DOT uses drug and alcohol testing data.
• How DOT verifies that data are reliable.
• Whether DOT follows key actions for transparently reporting drug and alcohol testing data.

Drug and alcohol testing is required for certain transportation industry employees. Federal agencies that regulate these industries collect test result data from employers and use it to set random testing rates.

The DOT office that collects the data and the agencies that use it take steps to verify its completeness and accuracy. But the GAO report says “these steps vary across agencies and haven’t been reviewed to ensure they are sufficient.”

The report also found opportunities for DOT to improve the transparency of the data and to inform the public about it.

In March 2019, DOT published aggregated drug and alcohol testing data on its website, as required. The data is updated annually and follows several key actions for transparently reporting government data.

But the GAO report says the agency hasn’t disclosed “known data limitations that exist” that would prevent users from accurately calculating the random testing rate. The agency also has not taken steps to inform the public of the data nor encouraged its use. LL