Bill Would Shorten The List Of Hazmats Covered By Background Investigation

      Congress has legislation that would limit the shipments for which truck drivers must obtain a fingerprint-based background check.
      Right now, the hazardous materials endorsement on a driver's license covers hazmats ranging from the most dangerous chemicals to relatively innocuous products such as paint and fingernail polish remover. The trucking industry has complained to Congress that this is excessive. Moreover, the industry says, drivers lose too much time going through the fingerprinting process, and the pending Transportation Worker Identity Credential is going to make the process even more cumbersome and expensive.
      The response is a bill – the Screening Applied Fairly and Equitably (SAFE) Act – that would require the Department of Homeland Security to figure out what commodities need to be guarded and designate them as "security sensitive materials." The fingerprint-based background check would apply only to these goods.
      The bill also contains a provision that would limit what DHS can charge for fingerprinting and the security check, and would require fingerprinting facilities to be open at times that are more convenient for truck drivers. It also would make a permit to haul security sensitive material part of the TWIC.
      The bill, which is generally supported by trucking interests such as the American Trucking Associations and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, has been reported out of the House Subcommittee on Infrastructure Protection to the full Committee on Homeland Security. Its future is not clear. The Transportation Security Administration has not taken an official position but has pointed out a number of concerns, not the least of which is the difficulty of developing a list of security sensitive materials.
      Also, passage will require support of the state departments of motor vehicles, which have expressed concern about having to make changes in the current hazmat background check system.

—By Oliver B. Patton, Washington Editor

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