House Subcommittee on Surface Transportation (cont) - p.4 enter the blood through involuntary inhalation or skin absorption and become additive in the breath. Breath alcohol instruments--many of which are already included on the D.O.T. "Conforming Products List"--incapable of discriminating between such various volatile organic compounds, including "low molecular weight alcohols", cannot possibly accurately report breath alcohol levels correctly. Such inaccurate results--though reported as seemingly correct--may cause instances of "false positives" in which legally sober transportation workers are incorrectly removed from the workplace at considerable expense and risk of costly subsequent legal action to their employers. importantly, inaccurate results will result in "false negatives" permitting transportation employees on the highways when they should have been removed, thus undermining the intent of the final rule. Most Such uncertainties caused by arbitrarily changing the time tested legal definition of "alcohol" will certainly open the door for increased legal challenges against those employers honestly using their best efforts to implement the 1991 law. Indeed a flood of legal challenges, based upon the fact that D.O.T. and NHTSA have approved devices on their CPL that were never tested for accuracy on each of the alcohols which fall under their arbitrary new definition, may prove This arbitrary change in the legal definition of "alcohol" could compromise employee rights to fair and accurate alcohol breath testing due to increased possibility of false positive readings, which could cause unfair discipline, loss of employment and compromise of employees' reputations. Unjust discipline and termination will extend beyond individual employees to the union, to employers and to the entire transportation industry. Employers will bear the burden of defending "alcohol" tests which have no true scientific reliability. It is our recommendation that you review this aspect of the "final rule" and the adverse results it will undoubtedly ultimately produce. After consideration, it is our hope that you will take such appropriate action as is necessary to ensure that the Department of Transportation reverse its final rule to the previously legally accepted definition of alcohol as "ethyl alcohol or beverage alcohol". If we are to avoid the aforementioned legal dilemmas for the transportation industry in this country and fully protect transportation employee rights, the definition of alcohol must be returned to ethyl alcohol only. Again, thank you Mr. Chairman for allowing us to appear before your committee today. I would be more than happy to answer any questions or to supply your committee with additional written information in the next few days. p.6 G. Roger Tatum, Ph.D. Dr. Tatum, Ph.D. chemist with over 20 years experience in chemical instrumentation, teaches at La Sierra University (formerly the La Sierra Campus of Loma Linda University) where he has supervised more than 50 student research projects involving analytical chemistry, chemical instrumentation, real-time computer interfacing, and statistical analysis of laboratory data. Research interests include sensor technology, electrochemistry, spectroscopic and chromatographic analytical methods, and chemometric data analysis. Research fellowships have been at the Carnegie Geophysical Laboratory and at the Biochemistry department of Loma Linda University developing computer-interfaced chemical instrumentation. Consulting in industry has involved Dr. Tatum for several years in human physiological testing, liquid scintillation counting, UV-visible spectrophotometry, coulometric and amperometric electrochemistry, GLC and HPLC analytical methods, analysis of breath alcohol for law enforcement, and drug of abuse detection using flow immunosensors. Current professional consulting positions include Director of Chemistry at U.S. Alcohol Testing of America, Inc. and Laboratory Co-director at Biochemical Toxicology Laboratory. Breath alcohol analysis technical presentations have been prepared by Dr. Tatum for the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Air Transportation Board (ATB), Airline Pilots Association (APA), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) (formerly the National Bureau of Standards, NBS), and for the Biological Science Curriculum Study (BSCS) project. International work on alcohol breath testing by Tatum includes preparing technical information for the Standards Australia Committee on Blood Alcohol Testing Devices and the Organisation Internationale de Metrologie Legale (OIML). Scientific professional society memberships include AAAS, ACS, AACC, LACT, and NSTA. Personal hobbies include travel, tennis and distance bicycling. |