Congressional Committee Approves Bill To Develop ‘Impairment Standards’ For Cannabis

A congressional committee has approved transportation legislation containing provisions to require federal officials to study the issue of driving of driving under the influence of marijuana and other drugs and propose “evidence-based impairment standards.”

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee voted 61-2 on Thursday to advance the Building Unrivaled Infrastructure and Long-term Development (BUILD) for America’s 250th Act, sponsored by Reps. Sam Graves (R-MO) and Rick Larsen (D-WA), who are, respectively, the chair and ranking member of the panel.

The more than 1,000-page legislation covers broad areas of transportation, including roads, bridges, rail and highway programs.

The proposal’s section on drug issues would require the secretary of transportation to collaborate with the heads of other relevant federal agencies to “study the effect that intoxicating cannabinoids and polysubstance impairment has on driving” and to analyze measures for detecting and reducing impaired driving.

The federal officials would then need to “propose evidence-based impairment standards for intoxicating cannabinoids or polysubstance use,” and the transportation secretary would need to provide Congress with a report describing progress on the effort.

A manager’s amendment to the bill that was adopted replaced an initial draft’s mentions of “marijuana” with “intoxicating cannabinoids.” A separate standalone amendment from Rep. Julia Brownley (D-CA) sought to make the same change, but it was not considered as its substance was included in the chairman’s larger package.

A separate provision of the advancing legislation would direct the secretary to establish a national drug involved crash data collection system.

Its duties would be to:

‘‘(A) collect standardized toxicology data from States for fatal and serious injury crashes;

(B) link crash data with medical, coroner, hospital, and emergency medical services records; and

(C) provide model protocols for specimen collection, testing, and reporting.”

Under that system, the Department of Transportation (DOT) could award grants to states assist with launching pilot programs for enhanced data collection and to support toxicology labs, specimen collection, training, data systems and data linkage.

In order to protect people’s privacy, the data would need to be “deidentified” before it is made publicly available, including through a report the transportation secretary would be required to provide to Congress that would “analyze trends, substance types, and geographic patterns collected under the system.”

The bill would require the department to spend $110 million to support the effort from Fiscal Years 2027-2031.

Additionally, the legislation as approved would direct administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to submit a report to Congress on the status of the collaborative research effort to advance impaired driving prevention technology.

Graves said after the panel’s 14-hour markup that he looks forward to “moving this bill on the House floor in the near future, and to working with the Senate to pass a final bill before the current law expires on September 30th,” referring to overall federal transportation authorization policy.

Larsen similarly said he anticipates “swift passage by the full House.”

The advancement of the large-scale transportation bill with impaired driving provisions comes days after DOT issued new guidance saying that truck drivers, airline pilots and other safety-sensitive workers still cannot use medical marijuana without punishment despite the Trump administration’s move to reschedule it.

“Marijuana use is not compatible with safety-sensitive functions,” the agency said earlier this month.

Medical review officers (MROs) who receive drug test results indicating cannabis consumption cannot deem them to be negative for illegal substance use, even when an employee says it was the result of state-licensed medical marijuana, the department said.

“Currently, there is no instance when the MRO could verify a laboratory-confirmed marijuana positive drug test result as ‘negative’ when an employee claims the positive was caused by a State licensed marijuana product,” DOT said, explaining that even after rescheduling, medical marijuana dispensed in accordance with state law “does not constitute” a drug that has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Last October, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy suggested President Donald Trump was “getting pressure” to reschedule cannabis—arguing that marijuana is “really addictive” and saying that policy reform around the issue sends a “dangerous” message.

“At a time when culture is pushing and celebrating the use of marijuana, we’re not talking about the risk,” Duffy said.

Last week, a pair of Republican lawmakers teamed up with anti-marijuana groups to push for a “carve-out” to ensure that safety-sensitive workers continue to be tested and punished for cannabis use.