Meteorological summer has begun; the warm season always brings extra attention to heat related illness in the workplace. Make sure your facility has a plan to help keep employees cool and safe this summer. The first week of June kicks off with busy action at PHMSA; Special Permit and other agency actions are in the news. There were also other items of interest. See it all here:
PHMSA
The agency has been very busy with special permits over the last year and May was no exception. A new set of announcements has been published regarding new action. As if usually the case, the SP actions mainly pertain to cylinders, portable tanks, batteries, and requests for exceeding specified quantity limits for a given material’s transport. See the new actions at the three links here:
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2021-06-07/pdf/2021-11877.pdf
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2021-06-07/pdf/2021-11876.pdf
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2021-06-07/pdf/2021-11878.pdf
The agency announced a correction to it adjustment of civil penalty amounts from last month. The correction updates the effective date from January to My of 2021. See it here.
PHMSA also published a renewal request for an ICR related to DOT cylinder marking, test, and inspection. DOT cylinders are used to transport regulated gases. See the ICR renewal request here.
In a rather interesting “blast from the past” the agency took action regarding a preemption decision from 23 years ago! This concerns a proceeding that was initiated in February 1998, when the National Tank Truck Carriers, Inc. (NTTC) applied to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration1 (PHMSA) for a determination that the HMTA preempted certain marking and record keeping requirements of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC). PHMSA found that the HMTA preempted the NYSDEC requirements because the requirements were not substantively the same as requirements in the HMR on the marking, maintaining, repairing, or testing of a package or container that is represented, marked, certified, or sold as qualified for transporting hazardous material. NYSDEC’s petition for reconsideration of that decision is dismissed on the grounds of mootness. NYSDEC has made significant revisions to its regulations, and the revised rules do not appear to impose the same requirements on regulated entities as the previous version of the rules that were challenged in this proceeding. It therefore does not appear that reconsidering PHMSA’s preemption determination regarding the now-superseded NYSDEC rules would have any practical effect. See the formal action here.
OSHA
The agency announced a NIOSH committee meeting for June. The National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health (NACOSH) will meet June 22, 2021, by teleconference and WebEx. Get all the details right here.
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