Hazmat Fingerprinting: This Isn't Going To Be Easy
There are few authorized locations and their hours are very restrictive.
Come May 31, federal law requires any commercial driver renewing or transferring a hazardous materials endorsement to be fingerprinted and pass a background check. The procedure was ordered in the Patriot Act, and is aimed at keeping terrorists out of hazmat truck cabs.
Any driver found to have been convicted of a serious felony will be permanently barred from hauling hazmats. Less serious offenses carry interim disbarments. Those drivers can appeal to the Transportation Security Administration to challenge a decision or show that they have been rehabilitated. TSA is an arm of the Department of Homeland Security
It all sounds nice and tidy. But maybe not.
The feds picked a single contractor, Integrated Biometric Technology of Nashville, to do the fingerprinting in states that didn't want to handle it themselves (states are running the program). All but 17 states are going with IBT.
The 17 doing their own fingerprinting are Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin.
Problem No.1: In all but a handful of states, there is only one location where drivers can be fingerprinted (California has four, North Carolina and New Jersey each have two).
Problem No. 2: Fingerprint facilities are restricting their hours of operation. In Nevada, for example, the single location (in Las Vegas) is only open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.
It's likely that most current CDL holders will need the hazmat endorsement. All it takes is a pallet of paint or a case of Clorox bleach, and the trailer has to be placarded.
A lot of them will have to travel hundreds of miles, and take a day - maybe two - just to be fingerprinted.
Wouldn't it be a fine idea if carriers were allowed to schedule "fingerprint day" at their own locations, so large groups of drivers could be printed at once? If the authorized fingerprinting contractor couldn't do it, the state could authorize a private firm.
Or how about sending your drivers to local law enforcement offices for fingerprinting? Or even better, if the driver has prints on file with law enforcement, why not transfer them over to the state CDL agency? If you can't trust the police to take a print, who can you trust?
TSA's answer to those suggestions: Any fingerprints taken by law enforcement or private vendors will not be accepted.
Presumably, you've tracked any of your hazmat drivers' CDLs and know when they're up for renewal. Now you have to determine whether each one has been fingerprinted, and when. You may also face a situation where you have to limit some drivers to non-hazmat loads until they can get to a fingerprinting location.
Applications for printing should be made in advance, either online at www.hazprints.com or by calling the TSA Help Desk at 1-877-429-7746. That web site, and those of individual state motor vehicle departments, can give you more detail.
Good luck. You're probably going to need it.
Doug Condra
President
E-mail Doug Condra at dcondra@truckinginfo.com, or write PO Box W. Newport Beach, Calif. 92656.
