Hazardous Materials: Reducing Burdens on Domestic Aerosol Shippers

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Part 171</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. PHMSA-2025-0089 (HM-268A)]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2137-AG03</RIN> <SUBJECT>Hazardous Materials: Reducing Burdens on Domestic Aerosol Shippers</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM). <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This NPRM proposes to update the definition of an aerosol to eliminate unnecessary regulatory burdens and maintain consistency with current international transportation standards. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before September 2, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by the Docket Number PHMSA-2025-0089 using any of the following methods: <E T="03">E-Gov Web: https://www.regulations.gov.</E> This site allows the public to enter comments on any <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notice issued by any agency. Follow the online instructions for submitting comments. <E T="03">Mail:</E> Docket Management System: U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590-0001. <E T="03">Hand Delivery:</E> U.S. DOT Docket Management System: West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. <E T="03">Fax:</E> 1-202-493-2251. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> Please include the docket number PHMSA-2025-0089 at the beginning of your comments. If you submit your comments by mail, submit two copies. If you wish to receive confirmation that PHMSA received your comments, include a self-addressed stamped postcard. Internet users may submit comments at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> <NOTE> <HD SOURCE="HED">Note:</HD> Comments are posted without changes or edits to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> including any personal information provided. There is a privacy statement published on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> </NOTE> <E T="03">Privacy Act:</E> In accordance with 5 U.S.C. 553(c), DOT solicits comments from the public to inform its rulemaking process. DOT posts these comments, without edit, including any personal information the commenter provides, to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> as described in the system of records notice (DOT/ALL-14 FDMS), which can be reviewed at <E T="03">https://www.dot.gov/privacy.</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. It is important that you clearly designate the comments submitted as CBI if: your comments responsive to this document contain commercial or financial information that is customarily treated as private; you actually treat such information as private; and your comment is relevant or responsive to this notice. You may ask PHMSA to provide confidential treatment to information you give to the agency by taking the following steps: (1) mark each page of the original document submission containing CBI as “Confidential”; (2) send PHMSA, along with the original document, a second copy of the original document with the CBI deleted; and (3) explain why the information that you are submitting is CBI. Submissions containing CBI should be sent to Steven Andrews, Standards and Rulemaking Division, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), 2nd Floor, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590-0001, or by email at <E T="03">steven.andrews@dot.gov.</E> Any materials PHMSA receives that is not specifically designated as CBI will be placed in the public docket. <E T="03">Docket:</E> For access to the docket to read background documents or comments received, go to <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the online instructions for accessing the docket. Alternatively, you may review the documents in person at the street address listed above. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Steven Andrews, Transportation Regulations Specialist, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590, 202-366-8553, <E T="03">steven.andrews@dot.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. General Discussion</HD> PHMSA proposes to revise the definition of an “aerosol” in 49 CFR 171.8, “Definitions,” to eliminate unnecessary regulatory burdens and maintain consistency with current international transportation standards. Historically, the Research and Special Programs Administration (RSPA)—the predecessor agency to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA)—differentiated between a compressed gas as the primary product in a container and a gas used solely as an aerosol propellant. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> However, after decades of transportation outside the United States under the international regulations' definition, PHMSA has preliminarily determined that this distinction is unnecessary. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  56 FR 55417 (Oct. 28, 1991). </FTNT> The Hazardous Materials Regulations (HMR) currently define an aerosol in 49 CFR 171.8 as “an article consisting of any non-refillable receptacle containing a gas compressed, liquefied or dissolved under pressure, the sole purpose of which is to expel a nonpoisonous (other than a Division 6.1 Packing Group III material) liquid, paste, or powder and fitted with a self-closing release device allowing the contents to be ejected by the gas.” On September 28, 2017, PHMSA received a petition for rulemaking  <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> concerning that definition from the Consumer Specialty Products Association (CSPA), Council on Safe Transportation of Hazardous Articles, Inc. (COSTHA), National Aerosol Association (NAA) and American Coatings Association (ACA) (collectively, Joint Petitioners). In that petition, the Joint Petitioners asked PHMSA to revise the HMR's definition of an aerosol to align with the definitions found in the United Nations Recommendations on the Transport of Dangerous Goods—Model Regulations (UNMR), the International Maritime Dangerous Goods (IMDG) Code, the International Civil Aviation Organization Technical Instructions on the Safe Transport of Dangerous Goods by Air (ICAO TI), and the Regulations governing European Road Transport (ADR). The Joint Petitioners noted that the HMR's definition for aerosol is inconsistent with its international counterpart, which does not include the limitation for gas to be used to expel a liquid, paste, or powder. Without harmonization, this results in pure gases being shipped as fully regulated compressed gases under the HMR. The exclusion of pure gases from the aerosol definition can significantly impact their regulation under the HMR, including requirements for packaging (DOT-specification cylinder versus DOT-2P or 2Q inner receptacle), hazard communication, and classification. Currently, PHMSA has special permits issued that allow the transportation of pure gases that are provided regulatory relief similar to shipments of aerosols meeting the international definition. Three examples of such special permits are DOT-SP 10232, DOT-SP 11516, and DOT-SP 10704. These special permits have all been in place for thirty years or more and have no reported safety incidents. On April 2, 2019, PHMSA responded to the Joint Petitioners by stating that the proposed revision merited further consideration. <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  P-1707 (PHMSA-2017-0131). </FTNT> Lack of harmonization between the HMR and international standards creates significant challenges for industry stakeholders engaged in global commerce, leading to confusion, increased compliance costs, and logistical inefficiencies, particularly for companies that manufacture, package, or transport hazardous materials across borders. Lack of harmonization also impedes trade, delays shipments, and reduces the competitiveness of U.S. businesses in the global marketplace—all of which can increase prices for U.S. consumers. Inconsistencies between the HMR and international definitions of aerosol are no different, and PHMSA is not aware of any transportation-related safety concerns which justify that inconsistency. Therefore, PHMSA is proposing to revise the definition of an aerosol in § 171.8 to align with the international definition and no longer require that an aerosol be designed for the sole purpose of expelling a liquid, paste or powder. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Regulatory Analysis and Notices</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Legal Authority</HD> This proposed rule is published under the authority of the Secretary of Transportation set forth in the Federal Hazardous Materials Transportation Laws (49 U.S.C. 5101 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) and delegated to the PHMSA Administrator pursuant to 49 CFR 1.97. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Executive Order 12866; Regulatory Planning and Review</HD> Executive Order (E.O.) 12866 (“Regulatory Planning and Review”), <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> as implemented by DOT Order 2100.6B (“Policies and Procedures for Rulemaking”), requires agencies to regulate in the “most cost-effective manner,” to make a “reasoned determination that the benefits of the intended regulation justify its costs,” and to develop regulations that “impose the least burden on society.” DOT Order 2100.6B specifies that regulations should generally “not be issued unless their benefits are expected to exceed their costs.” In arriving at those conclusions, E.O. 1286 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 29k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━