WASHINGTON – No more duplicative background checks for truck drivers.

That's the message that was received by the House Homeland Security Committee's Subcommittee on Transportation Security when Martin Rojas, ATA vice president of safety and operations, addressed the panel yesterday.

He said redundant security rules are costly and discourage qualified potential drivers from entering, or remaining in, the industry.

"The screening of individuals involved in the transportation of goods is important to the trucking industry," Rojas told the subcommittee. "Our industry has long supported a national, uniform process to check a commercial driver's criminal history. However, the present multiplicity of background checks for commercial drivers, and their associated costs, creates a significant challenge for the recruitment and retention of qualified drivers."

The cost of a hazmat endorsement background check is as high as $150, and since the program was implemented in 2004 more than 1.2 million hazmat drivers have voluntarily given up their endorsement, in part because of cost.

Worse still is the Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) – required for port truckers who must pay $132.50 for an identical biometric background check to the HME screening.

ATA says TWIC and HME screenings have cost commercial drivers nearly $180 million in fees alone, not including lost wages for time off work to undergo the application and fingerprinting processes.

"ATA believes," Rojas said, "that the MODERN Security Credentials Act, if signed into law, will have the . . . positive impact of reducing the burdensome requirements of multiple background checks and of excess fees and costs faced by commercial drivers and trucking companies."