Transportation of Fuel for Agricultural Aircraft Operations

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Part 383</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FMCSA-2024-0121]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2126-AC59</RIN> <SUBJECT>Transportation of Fuel for Agricultural Aircraft Operations</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM). <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This proposed rule would amend the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSRs) to allow States to waive the hazardous materials (HM) endorsement requirement for holders of Class A commercial driver's licenses (CDL) who transport no more than 1,000 gallons of aviation grade jet fuel in support of seasonal agricultural operations. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before February 3, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by Docket Number FMCSA <E T="03">-</E> 2024-0121 using any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal:</E> Go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/docket/FMCSA-2024-0121/document</E> . Follow the online instructions for submitting comments. • <E T="03">Mail:</E> Dockets Operations, U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building, Ground Floor, Washington, DC 20590-0001. • <E T="03">Hand Delivery or Courier:</E> Dockets Operations, U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building, Ground Floor, Washington, DC 20590-0001, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. To be sure someone is there to help you, please call (202) 366-9317 or (202) 366-9826 before visiting Dockets Operations. • <E T="03">Fax:</E> (202) 493-2251. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Ms. Rebecca Rehberg, Transportation Specialist, CDL Division, Office of Safety Programs, FMCSA; (850)-728-2034; <E T="03">rebecca.rehberg@dot.gov</E> . If you have questions on viewing or submitting material to the docket, call Dockets Operations at (202) 366-9826. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> FMCSA organizes this NPRM as follows: <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Public Participation and Request for Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Submitting Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Viewing Comments and Documents</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Privacy</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Executive Summary</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Purpose and Summary of the Regulatory Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Costs and Benefits</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Abbreviations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Legal Basis</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Discussion of Proposed Rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VII. International Impacts</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VIII. Section-by-Section Analysis</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IX. Regulatory Analyses</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. E.O. 12866 (Regulatory Planning and Review), E.O. 13563 (Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review), E.O. 14094 (Modernizing Regulatory Review), and DOT Regulatory Policies and Procedures</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Regulatory Flexibility Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Assistance for Small Entities</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Paperwork Reduction Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. E.O. 13132 (Federalism)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">H. Privacy</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">I. E.O. 13175 (Indian Tribal Governments)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">J. National Environmental Policy Act of 1969</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">K. Rulemaking Summary</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Public Participation and Request for Comments</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Submitting Comments</HD> If you submit a comment, please include the docket number for this NPRM (FMCSA-2024-0121), indicate the specific section of this document to which your comment applies, and provide a reason for each suggestion or recommendation. You may submit your comments and material online or by fax, mail, or hand delivery, but please use only one of these means. FMCSA recommends that you include your name and a mailing address, an email address, or a phone number in the body of your document so FMCSA can contact you if there are questions regarding your submission. To submit your comment online, go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/docket/FMCSA-2024-0121/document,</E> click on this NPRM, click “Comment,” and type your comment into the text box on the following screen. If you submit your comments by mail or hand delivery, submit them in an unbound format, no larger than 8 <FR>1/2</FR> by 11 inches, suitable for copying and electronic filing. FMCSA will consider all comments and material received during the comment period. <HD SOURCE="HD3">Confidential Business Information (CBI)</HD> CBI is commercial or financial information that is both customarily and actually treated as private by its owner. Under the Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. 552), CBI is exempt from public disclosure. If your comments responsive to the 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 the NPRM, it is important that you clearly designate the submitted comments as CBI.Please mark each page of your submission that constitutes CBI as “PROPIN” to indicate it contains proprietary information. FMCSA will treat such marked submissions as confidential under the Freedom of Information Act, and they will not be placed in the public docket of the NPRM. Submissions containing CBI should be sent to Brian Dahlin, Chief, Regulatory Evaluation Division, Office of Policy, FMCSA, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590-0001 or via email at <E T="03">brian.g.dahlin@dot.gov</E> . At this time, you need not send a duplicate hardcopy of your electronic CBI submissions to FMCSA headquarters. Any comments FMCSA receives not specifically designated as CBI will be placed in the public docket for this rulemaking. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Viewing Comments and Documents</HD> To view any documents mentioned as being available in the docket, go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/docket/FMCSA-2024-0121/document</E> and choose the document to review. To view comments, click this NPRM, then click “Browse Comments.” If you do not have access to the internet, you may view the docket online by visiting Dockets Operations on the ground floor of the DOT West Building, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590-0001, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. To be sure someone is there to help you, please call (202) 366-9317 or (202) 366-9826 before visiting Dockets Operations. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Privacy</HD> In accordance with 5 U.S.C. 553(c), DOT solicits comments from the public to better inform its regulatory process. DOT posts these comments, including any personal information the commenter provides, to <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> as described in the system of records notice DOT/ALL 14 (Federal Docket Management System (FDMS)), which can be reviewed at <E T="03">https://www.transportation.gov/individuals/privacy/privacy-act-system-records-notices</E> . The comments are posted without edit and are searchable by the name of the submitter. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Executive Summary</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Purpose and Summary of the Regulatory Action</HD> FMCSA proposes to amend the commercial driver's license (CDL) regulations to allow States additional flexibility to waive the hazardous materials (HM) endorsement  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> requirement for certain drivers transporting aviation fuel in furtherance of agricultural aviation operations. Many farm operations rely on aircraft to apply pesticides or fertilizers to their crops. Agricultural aviation companies often deliver aircraft fuel to staging areas some distance from their headquarters. These companies, particularly in remote, rural areas, have difficulty finding CDL holders with HM endorsements to complete these deliveries. Under the current regulations, most CDL holders must obtain an HM endorsement before transporting fuels. However, 49 CFR 383.3(i) provides a limited exception to this requirement and allows States to waive the requirement of an HM endorsement if the holder of a Class A CDL is transporting diesel fuel in the CDL holder's State of domicile as an employee of four specific agriculture-related businesses. FMCSA proposes to give States authority to waive the HM endorsement requirement for Class A CDL holders who transport up to 1,000 gallons of aviation grade jet fuel (often called Jet A, referred to as <E T="03">jet fuel</E> for the purposes of this preamble) in the CDL holder's State of domicile and in support of agricultural aircraft operations. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>   <E T="03">Endorsement</E> as defined in § 383.5 means an authorization to an individual's commercial learner's permit (CLP) or CDL required to permit the individual to operate certain types of commercial motor vehicles. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Costs and Benefits</HD> This proposal could result in costs to States and their State driver licensing agencies (SDLAs) and may result in cost savings to drivers and to agricultural aviation operators. States and their SDLAs may incur costs for updating their websites and other informational materials to reflect the changes in requirements for Class A CDL holders transporting hazardous materials and for training roadside officers. The proposal would result in cost savings for agricultural aviation ope ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 75k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━