Omnibus Transportation Employee Testing Act of 1991 Law and Legal Definition
The Omnibus Transportation Employee Testing Act of 1991 is a U.S. federal that requires drug and alcohol testing for safety-sensitive transportation employees in aviation, trucking, railroads, mass transit, pipelines, and other transportation industries. The Act covers a majority of the transportation workers.
The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) publishes rules detailing the persons who must conduct drug and alcohol tests, and the method of conducting those tests. These regulations cover all transportation employers, safety-sensitive transportation employees, and service agents. The Office of Drug & Alcohol Policy & Compliance (ODAPC) publishes, implements, and provides authoritative interpretations of the testing rules in 49 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 40. The Department of Transportation oversees the implementation and enforcement of this act for the public and private sector.
The following is an example of a case law referring to the Omnibus Transportation Employee Testing Act of 1991:
Department of Transportation regulations issued in 1988 and those issued under the authority of the Omnibus Transportation Employee Testing Act of 1991, 49 U.S.C.S. § 5331, require drug and alcohol testing of employees in safety-sensitive positions in the aviation, trucking, mass-transit, pipeline, and other transportation industries. 49 C.F.R. § 391.81 et seq.; 49 C.F.R. § 382.101 et seq.; 49 C.F.R. § 392.1 et seq.; 49 C.F.R. § 40.01 et seq. Those federally mandated drug tests are subject to procedural requirements intended to protect individual privacy, ensure accountability and integrity of specimens, require confirmation of all positive screening tests, mandate the use of laboratories operating within certain guidelines, provide confidentiality for test results and medical histories, and ensure nondiscriminatory testing methods. The procedural regulations are enforced by administrative remedies in the form of civil and criminal penalties. 49 U.S.C.S. § 521; 49 C.F.R. § 382.507. There is no private cause of action available to aggrieved employees for a violation of the procedural protections. [Williams v. UPS, 527 F.3d 1135 (10th Cir. 2008).
