The nation gained a step this week when the FRA renewed the charter of the Railroad Safety Advisory Committee, an expert group working hard to help keep goods—like these vehicles being hauled by a BNSF train in Sumner, Washington recently—as well as people moving safely on our extensive rail network. Image © 5/2016 by Nikki Burgess; all rights reserved.

It’s Monday again—hope you’re coping—and time thus for another edition of the weekly peek at what’s new in the world of Dangerous Goods and EH&S:

OSHA: 

• OSHA announced the new availability millions of dollars in grant monies to qualifying small governments and training organizations under the annual Susan Harwood Training Grant program, targeting safety improvements in the following three areas:
  • Capacity Building grants focus on developing and/or expanding the capacity of an organization to provide safety and health training, education and related assistance to the targeted audiences.
  • Target Topic grants focus on training of workers and/or multiple employers on occupational safety and health hazards associated with one of the OSHA selected training topics.
  • Training Materials Development grantees are expected to develop, evaluate, and validate classroom quality training materials on one of the OSHA selected training topics.
  • Ms. Harwood, the program’s namesake, was a director of OSHA Risk Management and an early advocate of outreach to organizations to help OSHA fulfill its industrial safety mission.  Learn more about her and the grant program here
• OSHA also issued a correction to its respiralbe silica dust rule, fixing some important particulate level enumerations.  Here’s your fix
• OSHA additionally published a very important correction to its new Injury and Illness Reporting standard.  The action clarifies much of the defined scope of who is eligible to see and review the information.  See the correction right here

The U.N. Subcommitee:

• The 49^th Session of the UN Subcommittee of Experts on the Transport of Dangerous Goods will be held this summer (27 June – 6 July 2016) in Geneva, Switzerland.   Action at these conferences nearly always finds its way into both US and other similar international transport regulations.  Items of interest include some forty-eight different position papers and an even dozen informal guidance and or advisory documents dealing with things as diverse as lithium batteries and flammable gases, with many other topics fitting in between .  For more information and a comprehensive summary, check out the industry advocacy group “The Council on Safe Transportation of Hazardous Articles (COSTHA)” work on the subject (and much other helpful information!)

Federal Railroad Administration:

• The FRA announced the charter renewal of the Railroad Safety Advisory Committee or RSAC, a Federal Advisory Committee that develops railroad safety regulations through a consensus process.  The new charter for this important but relatively little known group will expire in two years.  Here’s your notice

PHMSA:

• In a long awaited action, PHMSA issued a final rule to prohibit passengers and crewmembers from carrying battery-powered portable electronic smoking devices (e.g., e-cigarettes, e-cigs, e-cigars, e-pipes, e-hookahs, personal vaporizers, electronic nicotine delivery systems) in checked baggage and from charging these devices and their batteries on board the aircraft. However, these devices may continue to be carried in carry-on baggage. This action is consistent with the interim final rule (IFR) published in the Federal Register on October 30, 2015, and a similar amendment in the 2015–2016 Edition of the International Civil Aviation Organization Technical Instructions for the Safe Transport of Dangerous Goods by Air (ICAO Technical Instructions).  See the new final rule here

Transport Canada:

• Transport Canada (that nation’s analog to the USDOT) released a Civil Aviations Safety Alert, in this case, # CASA 2016-04.  In its essence, the alert harmonize rules for treatment of Lithium batteries with new international dn US standards.  Here is the alert
• You can also see Labelmaster’s extensive and continuing coverage of the ongoing lithium battery issue on this blog

U.S. EPA:

• USEPA announced the award of fifty-five million dollars in grants to assist in the clean up and rehabilitation of over two hundred-called “Brownfield” sites nationwide.  These sites usually previously hosted industrial operations that contaminated soil and groundwater, usually long before any standards were set for controlling such discharges and often before it was generally understood to be a long term health threat.  See the program’s home page and get more information about grants right here

Labelmaster is a full service provider of products and services for the Hazardous Materials and Dangerous Goods professional, shippers, transport operators, and EH&S providers. See our full line of solutions at www.labelmaster.com.