The Federal Railroad Administration announced in the December 28, 2018 Federal Register that the random drug and alcohol rates for 2019 will remain unchanged. The annual random testing rate for Covered Service Employees will remain at 25% for drug and 10% for alcohol and Maintenance of Way Employees will remain at 50% for drug and 25% for alcohol.
The United States Coast Guard announced in the Federal Register on December 28th that they are increasing the random drug testing rate for covered crewmembers for 2019 from 25% annually to 50% annually as a result of the MIS data for the most recent reporting year indicating that the positive rate is greater than 1%. For the official Federal Register announcement please see https://www.govinfo.gov/…/…/FR-2018-12-28/pdf/2018-28231.pdf
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) announced in the December 11, 2018 Federal Register that the random drug testing rate for 2019 will remain unchanged at 50% annually. PHMSA currently does not require random alcohol testing. Please see https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2018-12-11/pdf/2018-26750.pdf for the official publication of the 2019 PHMSA random testing rate.
The FAA announced their 2019 random testing rates will remain the same (25% for drug and 10% for alcohol). See details in the December 3rd Federal Register. http://ow.ly/V2LY30mQxg3
On October 17, 2018, the Federal Transit Administration announced that effective January 1, 2019, the minimum rate of random drug testing will increase from 25 percent to 50 percent of covered employees for employers subject to FTA’s drug and alcohol regulation. This change is due to an increase in the industry’s “positive rate” as reflected in random drug test data for calendar year 2017.
The alcohol testing rate is unchanged for 2019 and will remain at 10 percent.
Please see FTA’s October 17th letter announcing this change.