Trucking Safety Bill Mandates Reporting Positive Hair Drug Tests to Federal Clearinghouse Within One Year

This new legislation, the Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse Public Safety Improvement Act of 2025, is a straightforward update to how the federal government tracks commercial drivers who use drugs. Essentially, it requires trucking companies (motor carriers operating vehicles over 10,000 pounds) to start reporting positive hair drug test results directly to the federal Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse.

Why Hair Testing Matters

Right now, the Clearinghouse primarily collects positive results from urine tests. Hair testing is different because it can detect drug use over a much longer period—often up to 90 days—compared to the typical few days for urine tests. The bill mandates that if a commercial driver tests positive using a hair sample—whether during pre-employment screening or a random test—that result must be submitted to the federal database. This means that a positive hair test will now officially count as “actual knowledge” of drug use, making it much harder for a driver who failed a test to simply jump to another carrier without detection.

Strict Rules for the Test Results

This isn't a free-for-all for just any hair test. The bill sets two very specific quality checks to ensure the results going into the federal database are reliable. First, the testing device itself must be cleared by the FDA (under section 510(k) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act). Second, the lab processing the sample must be accredited by the College of American Pathologists specifically for forensic hair drug testing. This high bar for accreditation is meant to standardize the testing process, but it also limits which labs carriers can use, potentially affecting testing costs or availability.

What This Means for Trucking and Safety

For the average person, this bill is about improving highway safety by giving the Department of Transportation (DOT) a more complete picture of drug use among commercial drivers. For motor carriers, this creates a new administrative burden and compliance requirement. They must integrate these new hair test results into their reporting systems, and the DOT has one year to update regulations (49 CFR section 382.107) to make it official. For commercial drivers, this means the net for detecting drug use just got wider and longer. If a driver fails a hair test, that result will now follow them through the Clearinghouse, just like a failed urine test does today, requiring them to go through the necessary return-to-duty process before they can drive again. Ultimately, this change improves the quality of data in the Clearinghouse, but carriers need to be ready for the new reporting rules and the associated costs within the next year.