This Week at the Department of Transportation — week of May 11, 2026

This week, the Department of Transportation issued rules affecting drug testing for safety workers, highway contract paperwork, and railroad worker certification and training. Two proposed rules would roll back federal certification requirements for railroad signal workers and dispatchers, while other actions are largely administrative fixes.

Workplace Drug Testing for Safety-Sensitive Workers

• DOT is updating its drug and alcohol testing rules for safety-sensitive transportation workers. A 2023 rule required directly observed drug tests to use oral fluid, but no federal-certified laboratories currently process those samples, making the requirement impossible to follow.
• The new rule temporarily allows directly observed tests to use urine instead. This is a compliance fix, not a policy shift: it keeps testing functional and ensures directly observed collections continue to meet safety standards while waiting for laboratory certification.

Highway Contract Paperwork

• The Federal Highway Administration is ending a requirement that contractors physically incorporate a specific government form, FHWA-1273, into federal-aid highway project contracts.
• The change is administrative. Underlying safety, labor, and environmental rules remain unchanged, but contractors and state agencies gain flexibility in how they structure contracts without maintaining a specific document format.

Railroad Worker Certification and Training

• The Federal Railroad Administration proposes to cancel a 2024 rule requiring railroads to certify workers who maintain and repair signals. That rule required formal training programs, verification of qualifications and safety records, and certification revocations for violations. If finalized, railroads would no longer face federal tracking, verification, or reporting requirements for these workers.
• The agency also proposes to rescind 49 CFR Part 245, the regulation requiring railroads to create and submit written programs for certifying dispatchers. This would remove a federal safety oversight layer for dispatchers, though the agency could revisit the issue later.
• Separately, FRA issued a final rule updating training and qualification standards for safety-related railroad employees. The update clarifies existing requirements, converts previous agency guidance into official regulatory text, and removes outdated provisions—a largely administrative change that reduces confusion for railroad companies while leaving safety policy intact.

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This weekly agency digest is generated from federal records (the Federal Register and Congress.gov) and summarized in plain English. It may simplify or omit detail — follow the linked official sources before relying on any item. Part of The Boring Parts.