Hazardous Materials: Advancing Safety of Highway, Rail, and Vessel Transportation

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Parts 107, 171, 172, 173, 174, 176, 177, 178, 179, and 180</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. PHMSA-2018-0080 (HM-265)]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2137-AF41</RIN> <SUBJECT>Hazardous Materials: Advancing Safety of Highway, Rail, and Vessel Transportation</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), Department of Transportation. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM). <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> PHMSA proposes to revise the Hazardous Materials Regulations to adopt several modal-specific amendments that would enhance the safe transportation of hazardous materials in commerce. PHMSA, in consultation with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the Federal Railroad Administration, and the United States Coast Guard, proposes amendments identified during Departmental review and from industry petitions for rulemaking. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received by January 27, 2025. To the extent possible, PHMSA will consider late-filed comments as a final rule is developed. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by the Docket Number PHMSA-2018-0080 (HM-265) by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal: https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the instructions for submitting comments. • <E T="03">Fax:</E> 1-202-493-2251. • <E T="03">Mail:</E> Docket Management System; U.S. Department of Transportation, West Building, Ground Floor, Room W12-140, Routing Symbol M-30, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590. • <E T="03">Hand Delivery:</E> Docket Management System; Room W12-140 on the ground floor of the West Building, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except federal holidays. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> All submissions must include the agency name and Docket Number (PHMSA-2018-0080) or Regulation Identifier Number (RIN) (2137-AF41) for this rulemaking at the beginning of the comment. To avoid duplication, please use only one of these four methods. All comments received will be posted without change to the Federal Docket Management System (FDMS) and will include any personal information you provide. <E T="03">Docket:</E> For access to the dockets to read background documents or comments received, go to <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov</E> or DOT's Docket Operations Office ( <E T="03">see</E> <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> ). <E T="03">Confidential Business Information:</E> Confidential Business Information (CBI) is commercial or financial information that is both customarily and actually treated as private by its owner. Under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) (5 U.S.C. 552), CBI is exempt from public disclosure. If your comments to this NPRM contain commercial or financial information that is customarily treated as private, that you actually treat as private, and that is relevant or responsive to this NPRM, it is important that you clearly designate the submitted comments as CBI. Please mark each page of your submission containing CBI as “PROPIN.” Submissions containing CBI should be sent to Eamonn Patrick, Office of Hazardous Materials Safety, Standards and Rulemaking Division, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Ave. SE, Washington, DC 20590-0001. Any commentary that PHMSA receives which is not specifically designated as CBI will be placed in the public docket for this rulemaking. <E T="03">Privacy Act:</E> In accordance with 5 U.S.C. 553(c), DOT solicits comments from the public to better inform its rulemaking process. DOT posts these comments, without edit, including any personal information the commenter provides, to <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov,</E> as described in the system of records notice (DOT/ALL-14 FDMS), which can be reviewed at <E T="03">http://www.dot.gov/privacy.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Eamonn Patrick, Standards and Rulemaking Division, 202-366-8553, 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="FP-2">II. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Railroad Safety Advisory Committee</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. AAR Authority To Approve the Design of Tank Cars and Quality Assurance Programs</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. Introduction</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. Tank Car Design Approval</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">3. Tank Car Facility Quality Assurance Program</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">4. Tank Car Facility Definition</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">5. Tank Car Facility and Design Certifying Engineer Registration</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">6. AAR Specifications for Tank Cars Incorporation by Reference</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">7. Tank Car Linings and Coatings</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">8. Editorial Revision to §§ 180.501 and 180.513</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Cargo Tank Regulatory Amendments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Cargo Tank Marking for Petroleum Distillate Fuels</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. P-1712</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. P-1724</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. P-1735</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Overview</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Rail</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Highway</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Vessel</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Multi-Modal</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Section-by-Section Review</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Regulatory Analyses and Notices</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Statutory/Legal Authority</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Executive Order 12866, 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. Draft 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. Executive Order 13211</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">M. Cybersecurity and Executive Order 14082</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">N. Severability</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Executive Summary</HD> The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) proposes to amend the requirements for the transportation of hazardous materials set out in the Hazardous Materials Regulations (HMR) (49 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) parts 171 to 180) and 49 CFR part 107. This rulemaking aims to amend provisions specific to the highway, rail, and vessel transportation of hazardous materials. In this notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM), PHMSA proposes to reform modal specific requirements in the HMR. PHMSA expects that the adoption of these proposals will maintain or enhance the safe transportation of hazardous materials while increasing the clarity of the HMR, and therefore decreasing compliance burdens. The proposed amendments also reflect changing conditions and trends that affect the safe transportation of hazardous materials while still maintaining or enhancing safety. The following are some of the more noteworthy subjects covered by proposed revisions: • Rail tank car use requirements as recommended by the Rail Safety Advisory Committee (RSAC); • Rail tank car and service equipment design approval requirements; • Highway cargo tank specifications and requalification requirements; and • Marking requirements for cargo tanks that contain multiple petroleum distillate fuels. In this rulemaking, PHMSA solicits comment from the public and regulated community on these proposed amendments, specifically pertaining to the need for, benefits, and costs of the proposed amendments; impact on safety; public interest; and any other relevant concerns. In its preliminary regulatory impact analysis (PRIA), PHMSA concluded that the aggregate benefits of the proposed amendments justify their aggregate costs. PHMSA estimates annualized net benefits at a two percent discount rate of approximately $97.3 million per year. Details on the estimated cost savings and benefits of this rulemakings can be found in the PRIA, which is available in the public docket for this rulemaking. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background</HD> The Federal Hazardous Materials Transportation Act (HMTA; 49 U.S.C. 5101 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) at 49 U.S.C. 5103 gives the Secretary general authority to issue regulations for the safe transportation of hazardous materials in commerce. The Secretary delegates the above statutory authorities to PHMSA at 49 CFR 1.97. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Railroad Safety Advisory Committee</HD> RSAC is a Federal Advisory Committee established by the U.S. Secretary of Transportation in accordance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act (5 U.S.C. App. 2) to provide information, advice, and recommendations to the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Administrator on matters relating to railroad safety. In 1996, FRA established RSAC to develop new regulatory standards, through a collaborative process, with all segments of the rail community working together to fashion mutually satisfactory solutions on safety regulatory issues. PHMSA participates in RSAC when issues related to hazardous material transportation are discussed, and participated in the development of the proposed recommendations i ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 670k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━