By George Lobsenz
In line with a September 2007 order from Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, the Energy Department has announced it will decrease the percentage of certain DoE contractor employees subject to random drug testing each year.
The department said the change, announced Jan. 23, is being done in conjunction with Bodman’s decision to subject all DoE employees holding security clearances–and all applicants seeking DoE jobs requiring security clearances–to annual drug testing.
In a Sept. 14, 2007, memorandum, Bodman ordered 100 percent testing of all employees holding federal and contractor positions requiring “Q” or “L” security clearances and all applicants for those sensitive “testing-designated positions,” known as TDPs.
“The secretary further determined, with regard to random drug testing, that employees in TDPs other than those to be included in the 100 percent annual sample pool be tested at a 30 percent annual sample rate,” DoE said in a final rule issued in the Jan. 23 Federal Register.
The department said the 30 percent sample rate would replace previous requirements that required that contractors conduct random testing covering 50 percent of their employees in TDPs.
DoE said it was making that change to provide equal treatment of federal and contractor employees; the department noted it already has implemented the changes in drug testing rates for federal employees.
The department also indicated the change was being made to lower the testing burden for its contractors. Employees of several defense companies, including Lockheed Martin [LMT] and Northrop Grumman [NOC], support work at DoE nuclear weapons facilities.
The change, DoE said in its Jan. 23 announcement, “establishes parity in the treatment of federal and contractor employees, and by decreasing the frequency of testing, reduces any burden associated with drug testing of contractor employees in these positions.”
Bodman decided to require drug testing for 100 percent of employees in, and applicants for, sensitive TDPs in the wake of departmental personnel security reviews prompted by a security breach discovered in October 2006 at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
In that incident, a Los Alamos subcontractor employee who took classified documents offsite was found to have had significant drug and alcohol problems; subsequent DoE-wide reviews found other holes in drug testing for federal and contractor employees working at security-sensitive facilities.