Hazardous Materials: FAST Act Requirements for Real-Time Train Consist Information

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Parts 171, 174, and 180</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. PHMSA-2016-0015 (HM-263)]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2137-AF21</RIN> <SUBJECT>Hazardous Materials: FAST Act Requirements for Real-Time Train Consist Information</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> PHMSA is amending the Hazardous Materials Regulations to require railroads that carry hazardous materials to generate in electronic form, maintain, and provide to first responders, emergency response officials, and law enforcement personnel, certain information regarding hazardous materials in rail transportation to enhance emergency response and investigative efforts. The amendments in this final rule address a safety recommendation of the National Transportation Safety Board and statutory mandates in The Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act, as amended by the Infrastructure, Investment, and Jobs Act, and complement existing regulatory requirements pertaining to the generation, maintenance, and provision of similar information in hard copy form, as well as other hazard communication requirements. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> <E T="03">Effective Date:</E> July 24, 2024. <E T="03">Voluntary Compliance Date:</E> June 24, 2024. <E T="03">Delayed Compliance Date:</E> For Class I Railroads June 24, 2025. For Class II and III Railroads June 24, 2026. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Eamonn Patrick, 202-366-8553, Standards and Rulemaking Division, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590-0001. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Executive Summary</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. What is the purpose of the regulatory action?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. What are the key provisions?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. What changed between the NPRM and the final rule?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. What is the economic impact?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Electronic Hazard Communication for Rail Transportation Emergency Response</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. What action is being taken?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. What is PHMSA's authority for this action?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Does this action apply to me?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. What is train consist information?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. What was required regarding train consist information prior to this final rule?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. How does this final rule impact existing special permits for electronic train consist information?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. How does train consist information affect rail transportation safety?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. How will the requirements for electronic train consist information adopted in this final rule affect rail transportation safety?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. What does PHMSA mean by real-time?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. How has PHMSA engaged stakeholders?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Summary and Discussion of Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Summary of Comments Received</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Applicability of Real-Time Electronic Train Consist Information Requirements to Regional and Short Line Railroads</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Emergency Notification of Rail Accidents and Incidents Involving Hazardous Materials</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Defining the Recipients of Train Consist Information</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Maintenance of Both Paper and Electronic Train Consists</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Availability of Train Consist Information in Real-Time</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Timing of Updates to Train Consist Information</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">H. Applicability of Requirements to Freight Lines Operating on Commuter/Passenger Rail Track</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">I. Origin/Destination Information</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">J. Emergency Response Point of Contact</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">K. Use of the Existing AskRail® Application To Comply With This Rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">L. Cost, Benefit, and Delayed Compliance Period</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">M. Comments Beyond the Scope of This Rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">N. Additional Notice and Opportunity To Comment</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Section-by-Section Review of Amendments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Sections 171.8 and 180.503</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Section 174.26</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Section 174.28</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Regulatory Analyses and Notices</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Statutory/Legal Authority for This Rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Executive Orders 12866 and 14094, and DOT Regulatory Policies and Procedures</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Executive Order 13132</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Executive Order 13175</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Regulatory Flexibility Act and Executive Order 13272</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Paperwork Reduction Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">H. Environmental Assessment</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">I. Privacy Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">J. Executive Order 13609 and International Trade Analysis</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">K. National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">L. Cybersecurity and Executive Order 14082</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">M. Severability</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Executive Summary</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. What is the purpose of the regulatory action?</HD> The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) is amending the Hazardous Materials Regulations (HMR; 49 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) parts 171 to 180) in response to congressional mandates and a safety recommendation of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and its existing statutory safety authorities. This final rule requires railroads transporting hazardous materials to generate train consist information in electronic form, maintain that information off-the-train, and update that information in real-time. Railroads must provide that information to authorized federal, state, and local first responders, emergency response officials, and law enforcement personnel  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> along the train route who could be or are involved in the response to, or investigation of, an accident, incident, or public health or safety emergency involving the rail transportation of hazardous materials in advance of their arrival to an accident or incident. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  PHMSA understands “authorized Federal, State, and local first responders, emergency response officials, and law enforcement personnel” may include personnel from any of federal agencies ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> PHMSA, Federal Railroad Administration, National Transportation Safety Board, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, or Federal Emergency Management personnel) involved in the response to or investigation of a hazmat incident during rail transportation, or organizations that state or local governments authorize to perform emergency response activities. PHMSA further understands that “local first responders” includes tribal and territorial first responders. </FTNT> Additionally, immediately following either an accident involving a train carrying hazardous materials or an incident involving the release or suspected release of hazardous material from a train, the railroad operating the train must make an emergency notification telephonically and provide train consist information electronically to the primary Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP)  <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> responsible for the area where the event occurred as well as the track owner (if the track owner is different from the railroad operating the train). PHMSA also adopts a requirement that railroads must test their emergency notification system at least annually. In updating that electronic train consist information, railroads must also update the local copy version of the same information provided to train crews in printed paper copy. Updating both the local printed paper copy maintained by the train crew and the electronic version of that information maintained off the train ensures the information is consistent, accurate, and available when needed most. <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  A PSAP is an entity responsible for receiving 9-1-1 calls and processing those calls according to a specific operational policy. Primary PSAPs are responsible for directly receiving 9-1-1 and other emergency calls and may route them to other PSAPs for response. </FTNT> PHMSA expects this enhanced, proactive approach will ensure that emergency response personnel have timely, accurate, actionable information regarding the hazardous materials being transported and the hazards they may encounter when they are en route to or reach the scene of a rail accident or incident, thereby reducing the risks to surrounding communities and the environment while expediting site remediation, restoration of rail service, and community engagement efforts as investigation activity proceeds. While PHMSA understands the availability of electronic real-time train consist information may not have changed the outcome of the recent Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, that accident and similar events that have occurred in recent years highlight the importance of providing emergency response personnel with timely, complete, and accurate information regarding hazardous materials within a train—as any additional time for responders to prepare for what they will enc ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 290k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━