The United States Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) published a set of actions on a wide variety of special permit activities in today’s Federal Register.
For those not familiar with them, a good way to think of DOT Special Permits are as special authorities granted specific requesters to take actions (use packages, conduct various transport operations, repair equipment, etc—a wide variety of things) that in some way or ways may normally be prohibited by or else may not be specifically or completely addressed in the standard transport regulations (US 49 CFR). The most basic requirement for the granting of a special permit is that the permitted activity, regardless of its specific type, must be able to be taken with at least an equivalent level of safety to those similar actions otherwise permitted by regulation. Of course, any number of ancillary issues, including the impact of public comments, may also affect the grantee status of the special permit request.
The newly published listings address any number of such issues, many of which are highly specific and apply only to very small and specialized segments of the Hazardous Materials Community—part of the reason the whole process exists! However, certain portions do or may apply rather more broadly, or at least seem to have that potential, and are worthy of particular note to the community in general:
-Mercedes Benz was granted a Special Permit to transport Lithium Batteries weighing more than 35 kg by air. (SP 15869-N) (Ref: US 49 CFR 172.102 SP A54)
-Brenntag was granted a special permit to allow the transport in commerce of DOT type 106A500 tank cars carrying chlorine or sulfur dioxide that have been temporarily repaired using a Chlorine Institute Type B Kit (Edition 11). (SP 16102-N) (Ref: US 49 CFR 173.3 (e)(2))
Both of these actions, though specific in this case to those requesters and granting no further authority to anyone else at present, certainly seem to have qualities that may make them, or more accurately the ideas expressed in them, more generally applicable in the future to other members of the Hazardous Materials Transport Community. Only time will tell.
Other new actions affect items ranging from the transport of various hazardous materials by helicopter in Alaska, the transport of explosives for use in avalanche control, various actions regarding pressure cylinders, infectious substances, and any number of other unique situations. PHMSA concurrently posted a list of Special Permit applications received and also a list of those presently delayed in consideration beyond the normal 180 day window.
Here are links to the four sections published today:
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2014-03-31/pdf/2014-06864.pdf
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2014-03-31/pdf/2014-06865.pdf
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2014-03-31/pdf/2014-06868.pdf
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2014-03-31/pdf/2014-06866.pdf
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