Hazardous Materials: Remove Redundant List of U.S. EPA CERCLA Hazardous Substances

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Parts 171, 172, and 173</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. PHMSA-2025-0093 (HM-268E)]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2137-AG07</RIN> <SUBJECT>Hazardous Materials: Remove Redundant List of U.S. EPA CERCLA Hazardous Substances</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 revise the Hazardous Materials Regulations (HMR) to remove redundant pages contained in an Appendix that repeats references already listed in U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations. </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-2025-0093 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-2025-0093 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> <E T="03">Note:</E> 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> <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 Yul B. Baker Jr., Office of Hazardous Materials Safety, 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">yul.baker@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> Yul B. Baker Jr., Transportation Regulations Specialist, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590, 202-366-8553, <E T="03">yul.baker@dot.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. General Discussion</HD> To eliminate redundant and unnecessary requirements in the hazardous materials regulations (HMR; 49 CFR parts 171-180), PHMSA is proposing to remove Appendix A to § 172.101—List of Hazardous Substances and Reportable Quantities and insert a reference to the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) list of hazardous substances and reportable quantities in the definitions of “hazardous substance” and “reportable quantity” ( <E T="03">see,</E> 40 CFR 302.4). PHMSA is also proposing a conforming revision to requirements for empty packagings to remove reference to the now deleted Appendix A. Finally, PHMSA is proposing an editorial change to rename Appendix B to § 172.101—List of Marine Pollutants to Appendix A and to revise the definition of “marine pollutant” to refer to Appendix A instead of Appendix B based on these proposed changes. PHMSA does not expect that these proposed revisions will have any adverse impact on safety. The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, (CERCLA; 42 U.S.C. 9601 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) provides that “each hazardous substance which is listed or designated as provided in section 9601(14) . . . shall . . . be listed and regulated as a hazardous material under chapter 51 of title 49.” 42 U.S.C. 9656. EPA codified the list of hazardous substances at 40 CFR 302.4 and periodically updates the list to add, remove or revise entries. Even though EPA's list of “hazardous substances” is effectively incorporated into the HMR via the definitions that apply to the transportation of “hazardous materials” in § 171.8, PHMSA nevertheless publishes a separate list of hazardous substances in Appendix A to § 172.101—List of Hazardous Substances and Reportable Quantities. The proposed revisions to the HMR in this NPRM will still satisfy the intent of the CERCLA statute and improve clarity while also improving efficiency. Under the current regulations, PHMSA must publish a rulemaking periodically to update the list as a companion action to EPA rulemakings that make changes to the 40 CFR 302.4 list. There is often a time lag between when EPA updates its list through a rulemaking and when PHMSA issues a corresponding rulemaking. During this delay, stakeholders have expressed confusion whether a material that is listed by EPA is regulated by PHMSA as a hazardous material. PHMSA also receives similar inquiries when reportable quantities for certain materials are adjusted. Removing the separate list of hazardous substances in the HMR and referencing EPA's list of hazardous substances at 40 CFR 302.4 will provide more regulatory certainty. When a hazardous substance is listed, removed, or the applicable RQ adjusted by EPA, the material is either subject to the HMR as hazardous material, no longer subject to the HMR as hazardous material, or the conditions for applicability have been revised, respectively. PHMSA does not expect that these proposed revisions will have any adverse impact on safety. <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>1</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. 12866 requires that agencies should consider “both quantifiable measures . . . and qualitative measures of costs and benefits that are difficult to quantify” and “maximize net benefits . . . unless a statute requires another regulatory approach.” E.O. 12866 also requires that “agencies should assess all costs and benefits of available regulatory alternatives, including the alternative of not regulating.” DOT Order 2100.6B directs that PHMSA and other Operating Administrations must generally choose the “least costly regulatory alternative that achieves the relevant objectives” unless required by law or compelling safety need. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  58 FR 51735 (Oct. 4, 1993). </FTNT> E.O. 12866 and DOT Order 2100.6B also require that PHMSA submit “significant regulatory actions” to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the Executive Office of the President's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review. This proposed rule is a not significant regulatory action pursuant to E.O. 12866; it also has not designated this rule as a “major rule” as defined by the Congressional Review Act (5 U.S.C. 8 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 29k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━