Hazardous Materials: Reducing Costs to Domestic Shippers and Carriers of Limited Quantities

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Parts 172 and 173</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. PHMSA-2025-0090 (HM-268B)]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2137-AG04</RIN> <SUBJECT>Hazardous Materials: Reducing Costs to Domestic Shippers and Carriers of Limited Quantities</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 remove undue regulatory burdens by allowing for a reduced sized marking for limited quantity shipments of hazardous materials. </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-2025-0090 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-2025-0090 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 T. Glenn Foster, 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">glenn.foster@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> T. Glenn Foster, 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">glenn.foster@dot.gov.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. General Discussion</HD> PHMSA is proposing to revise 49 CFR 172.315(a)(2) to allow for a reduced sized limited quantity marking ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> a shipping label) for certain shipments of hazardous materials. PHMSA is also proposing to revise § 173.25(a)(6) to specifically state that this marking is not authorized on overpacks. PHMSA has made a preliminary determination that the current requirements in these regulations impose an undue burden on limited quantity shipments of hazardous materials. This NPRM, if finalized, would give affected entities regulatory flexibility by allowing a limited quantity marking to be used on certain packages. PHMSA expects that the proposed amendments would provide shippers and carriers of hazardous materials the ability to transport abundant, reliable, and affordable consumer products in response to residential, commercial, and industrial demand. A “limited quantity” of a hazardous material is defined in § 171.8 as the maximum amount of a hazardous material for which there is a specific labeling or packaging exception. Currently, § 172.315 specifies the marking requirements for limited quantities of hazardous materials, with paragraph (a)(2) of this section detailing the minimum size requirements. On January 17, 2024, PHMSA received a petition for rulemaking (P-1778  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> ) from the Council of Safe Transportation of Hazardous Articles (COSTHA) requesting the incorporation of Department of Transportation (DOT) special permit (SP) 21015 into the Hazardous Materials Regulations (HMR). COSTHA requested the modification of § 172.315(a)(2) to allow for the transportation in commerce of packages containing limited quantities of hazardous materials with a reduced size limited quantity marking placed on the package shipping label. COSTHA noted in its petition that it was unaware of any incidents that occurred involving DOT-SP 21015, and that its incorporation into the HMR would reduce industry burdens and facilitate compliant processes and preparation of lower risk hazardous materials. PHMSA responded to this petition on July 18, 2024, and determined that the proposed amendment of § 172.315(a)(2) warranted further consideration. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  P-1778, Council on the Safe Transportation of Hazardous Articles (COSTHA)— <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/docket/PHMSA-2024-0002/document.</E> </FTNT> PHMSA is not aware of any safety concerns related to the incorporation of DOT-SP 21015 into the HMR and agrees with the petitioner that doing so would reduce unnecessary compliance burdens; specifically, by eliminating the need to apply for a special permit in accordance with § 107.105, to seek party status in accordance with § 107.107, and to request a renewal in accordance with § 107.109. Incorporating DOT-SP 21015 into the HMR would also allow offerors of limited quantities shipments to use a consolidated marking on the shipping label, eliminating the need for a separate limited quantity label. For these reasons, PHMSA is proposing to revise § 172.315 to allow for a reduced size limited quantity marking that is also capable of electronically communicating to carriers that the package contains hazardous materials shipped under a limited quantity exception and the authorized modes of transportation. PHMSA is also proposing to revise § 173.25(a)(6) to specifically state that the reduced sized limited quantity mark is not authorized on overpacks. PHMSA does not expect these revisions to 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 Orders 12866; Regulatory Planning and Review</HD> Executive Order (E.O.) 12866 (“Regulatory Planning and Review”), <SU>2</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> < ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 28k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━