PHMSA Pipeline
Safety & DOT Compliance

Who counts as a covered employee

Section 199.3 defines a covered function as an operations, maintenance or emergency-response function regulated by 49 CFR Part 192, 193 or 195, performed on a pipeline or an LNG facility. A covered employee is anyone who performs one of those functions, and that includes employees of the operator as well as contractors the operator engages and their employees. An operator is a person who owns or operates pipeline facilities subject to Part 192, 193 or 195.

Part 199 applies to employees located within the United States, including the Outer Continental Shelf (§ 199.2). That section also carves out some systems, master meter systems among them, so confirm your system’s status in the text before you decide a facility is outside the program.

The contractor language is the part operators most often underestimate. A welder, a locator or a control-room staffer supplied by a contractor can be performing a covered function on your system. If so, that person is a covered employee whether or not he or she appears on your payroll.

The 2026 rate and why it stayed at 50 percent

The minimum annual random drug testing rate for 2026 is 50 percent of covered employees. It was 50 percent in 2025 too. PHMSA’s December 2025 notice explained that the 2024 DAMIS data showed a random drug positive rate above one percent, so the Administrator kept the rate where it was.

The rules for moving it are in § 199.105(c). The Administrator may lower the rate from 50 to 25 percent when the reported positive rate is below 1.0 percent for two consecutive calendar years. If the rate is 25 percent and any year’s positive rate reaches 1.0 percent or more, the Administrator must raise it back to 50. The agency publishes the rate in the Federal Register each year, effective January 1 of the following year.

DAMIS is the annual drug and alcohol management information system report that operators file under § 199.119(a). Those reports supply the data that decides next year’s rate, so an operator that files late or inaccurately affects more than its own compliance record.

There is no random alcohol test under Part 199

Section 199.105 requires random testing for drugs only. Alcohol appears in that section only in the follow-up testing paragraph, where a substance abuse professional may direct alcohol testing under 49 CFR Part 40. Part 199 does have an alcohol misuse prevention program, with its own retention rules in § 199.227, but random alcohol testing isn’t part of it.

This surprises operators who also run FMCSA-regulated driving, where a 10 percent random alcohol rate applies. An employee who is covered by both agencies is tested at the rate of the agency that regulates more than 50 percent of the employee’s functions, so a pipeline technician who spends most of the day on covered functions would follow Part 199, and a driver who is mostly on the road would follow FMCSA.

Selection and timing

Selection has to use a scientifically valid method, such as a random number table or a computer random number generator matched to Social Security, payroll or comparable identifiers. Each covered employee must have an equal chance of being tested each time selections are made. You have to select enough employees each calendar year to meet the minimum rate, and a consortium may work that number out for each operator or across the consortium as a whole. Tests are unannounced and spread reasonably throughout the calendar year.

An operator that is also under another DOT agency can use separate pools for each required rate or test everyone at the highest applicable rate. The comparison page shows where PHMSA’s 50 percent sits next to the other agencies, and the FMCSA page covers the CDL side.

Records

Drug testing records are governed by § 199.117.

The section doesn’t name random selection documents. A conservative approach is to keep them for at least the three-year collection-process period, and to save the roster, date, method, selected employees and notification times for each draw.

What testing software does and doesn’t cover

Random selection software supports the testing program: building the pool, drawing selections, tracking notifications and keeping records. It has nothing to do with pipeline engineering, inspection, maintenance or spill response, which fall under other parts of PHMSA’s rules.

Where programs go wrong

• Contractor employees performing covered functions are left out of any pool.
• The program assumes Part 199 requires random alcohol testing because the operator’s FMCSA-regulated side does.
• The 25 percent rate is assumed from an older year, even though the 2026 rate is 50 percent.
• Employees who also drive under FMCSA are put in two pools, instead of one pool at the rate of the agency that regulates most of their work.
• DAMIS reports are filed late or from incomplete rosters.
• Selection records aren’t saved, so there is nothing to show how a draw was made.