Hazardous Materials: Removing Burdensome Rail Reporting Requirements

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Parts 171 and 174</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. PHMSA-2025-0099 (HM-268K)]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2137-AG13</RIN> <SUBJECT>Hazardous Materials: Removing Burdensome Rail Reporting Requirements</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> PHMSA proposes to remove or replace various rail transportation requirements that are either obsolete, overly burdensome, or conflict with other requirements in the Hazardous Materials Regulations (HMR). </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-2025-0099 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-2025-0099 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 Alexander Wolcott, 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">alexander.wolcott@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> Alexander Wolcott, Transportation Regulations Specialist, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590, 202-366-8553, <E T="03">alexander.wolcott@dot.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. General Discussion</HD> PHMSA is proposing several changes to Part 171, General Information, Regulations, and Definitions, and Part 174, Carriage by Rail of Chapter I of Title 49 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). These proposed changes would remove or replace various rail requirements that are either obsolete, overly burdensome, or conflict with other requirements in the HMR. PHMSA does not expect that these proposed revisions would have any adverse impact on safety. Section 171.7 contains a list of the various documents PHMSA has incorporated by reference into the HMR. Section 171.7 also includes a table displaying materials that are not incorporated by reference. PHMSA is proposing to remove several publications from the table issued by the Association of American Railroad's (AAR) Bureau of Explosives (BOE), including the Intermodal Loading Guide for Products in Closed Trailers and Containers, Pamphlet 6, Pamphlet 6A, Pamphlet 6C, and the Emergency Handling of Hazardous Materials in Surface Transportation. Many of these publications have not been updated in decades and are no longer relevant to the nation's modern supply chain. PHMSA is proposing to remove these obsolete publications from the table and to make other conforming changes to §§ 174.55, 174.101, 174.112, 174.115, and 174.290 to remove subsequent references to the same publications. Section 174.20(a) authorizes a rail carrier to impose local or carrier restrictions for hazardous materials when acceptance, transportation, or delivery is unusually hazardous. Section 174.20(b) also requires a carrier to report these restrictions to the AAR BOE. The removal of these reporting requirements was initiated by an AAR proposal at the June 2016, Railroad Safety Advisory Committee (RSAC) meeting as their recommendation was that the reporting requirement to the AAR's BOE was no longer necessary. The final decision to remove and reserve this section was approved by consensus vote at the May 25, 2017, RSAC meeting and offered to PHMSA and Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) for consideration. Therefore, PHMSA understands these reports to be outdated requirements, but nonetheless welcomes input from stakeholders on their current use, if any. PHMSA expects removing this section would not adversely impact safety because rail carriers would still be able to make a determination that local conditions make the acceptance, transportation, or delivery of hazardous materials unusually hazardous. This would maintain the current level of safety by retaining the railroad's discretion to restrict the movement of hazardous materials when a rail line is unsafe due to weather, track damage, or other reasons that would make the transportation of hazardous materials unusually hazardous while reducing reporting burdens. Section 174.67 prescribes the requirements for tank car transloading. PHMSA is proposing to remove certain outdated and unnecessary requirements from § 174.67, including removing the references to dirt and cinders in paragraph (b), amending paragraph (d) to provide flexibility in protecting open tank cars during transloading, and removing paragraph (n) because it is redundant to § 174.57. PHMSA expects that these changes would not have any adverse impact on safety as transloading has become significantly less common since the adoption of § 174.67 and the risks that these requirements were meant to mitigate have significantly diminished due to technological advances in the rail industry over the last 50 years. <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 Orders 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 compellin ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 32k characters. 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