Veriforce Offers Streamlined Submittal Solutions to Pipeline Operators

New Drug and Alcohol Testing Reports Required for DOT’s March 15 Deadline

HOUSTON, TEXAS – February 18, 2010 – Veriforce, the leader in providing regulatory compliance and qualification verification for Pipeline Operators, is responding to the recent PHMSA advisory bulletin on changes to the drug and alcohol data reporting requirements by reaching out to Operators who are scrambling to submit this new information to the Department of Transportation (DOT) by the March 15, 2010 deadline.

“Veriforce is helping Operators with this reporting requirement in several ways and it is saving our customers a lot of time and money in the process,” explained Louie Werderich, president of Veriforce. “Many Operators are finding a real advantage in having us take care of their reports for them. They choose to have us obtain contractor Business Tax Identification Numbers (BTIN) and enter their contractor testing data from our verified records rather than them trying to gather and manage the information themselves.”

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s (PHMSA), Office of Pipeline Safety (OPS) has modified the Drug & Alcohol Management Information System (DAMIS) to now require Pipeline Operators with more than 50 covered employees to submit drug and alcohol testing data for all contractors that performed covered work for them during the previous year. These reports must be submitted in addition to the Operator’s own data and are due by March 15 of each year. The submittal of the contractor BTIN’s along with these reports will also allow the DOT to analyze contractor data without duplication. This data will be used to help determine the PHMSA minimum annual percentage rate for random drug testing.

“We help to ensure that contractors are meeting our Operator’s requirements, by tracking the data, and providing real-time access to reports,” explained Werderich. “We can also review the data contractors have submitted and work with them to verify accuracy.”

Veriforce is also clearing up confusion about whether an Operator would need to submit data for a specific contractor. For example, a contractor that was hired to perform some emergency response function, but was not used for the year because there was never an emergency, would still need to be reported. However, this would not include contractors that never worked for a specific Operator during the year, but may still have a Master Service Agreement (MSA) with the Operator.