The United States Marine Corps War Memorial depicting the flag raising at Iwo Jima at dusk.

On Sunday the nation paused to thank its veterans; Labelmaster joins with all Americans to express gratitude to all whose service has meant so much to our country.  The week’s news is led by an important PHMSA release as the agency published HM-219A; see below for all the details as well as other regulatory news:

PHMSA

• PHMSA published Final Rule HM-219A in response to petitions submitted by the regulated community to update, clarify, streamline, or provide relief from miscellaneous regulatory requirements.  Some of the more notable actions:
  • Revised regulations specifying the allowance for the use of labels and placards conforming to the specifications in the ICAO Technical Instructions, IMDG Code, or TDG Regulations (currently only the UN Recommendations is identified).
  • Allowance for the shipment of solid materials in a package when that package has been tested with a liquid material.
  • Allow for the use of metal, plastic, or composite pallets (currently only wood is identified) used to ship limited quantities of hazardous materials.
  • No longer require an emergency response telephone number be provided on a shipping paper for excepted quantities of hazardous materials.
  • Corrected the regulatory text in § 173.150(g), limited quantities of retail products containing ethyl alcohol, to show the International System of Units (SI units, aka metric) of measure as the primary unit of measure (UOM) instead of the U.S. UOM.
  • Revising regulations to add the word “approximately” to specific sections to allow for printing tolerances with respect to the solid inner border for labels and placards.
  • Revised regulations to allow the use of an electronic signature for the Uniform Hazardous Waste Manifest form and recognizing that the electronic manifest can be used to meet the 3-year retention requirement.
  • Revised regulations to allow for the paper wall basis weights that vary by not more than +/− 10 percent (currently limited to +/- 5 percent) from the nominal basis weight reported in the initial design qualification test report. Here’s the link to the rule
• The deadline to submit comments in response to that RFI has been extended by 30 days until December 10th.In PHMSA related action; back on October 9th the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the Office of Management and Budget published a Request for Information (RFI) soliciting public input on how the Federal Government, under the auspices of the United States-Canada Regulatory Cooperation Council (RCC), may reduce or eliminate unnecessary regulatory differences between the United States and Canada. Here’s your link
• PHMSA also published a set of Special Permit actions which can be roughly categorized as mainly dealing with the usual suspects—batteries, cylinders, and portable tanks.  Here’s your links:
  • https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/11/07/2018-24297/hazardous-materials-notice-of-applications-for-special-permits
  • https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/11/07/2018-24299/hazardous-materials-notice-of-applications-for-special-permits
  • https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/11/07/2018-24298/hazardous-materials-notice-of-applications-for-special-permits

Chemical Hazard & Safety Board

The agency announced its quarterly public input meeting for November 13th.  See how to join the meeting here

Labelmaster is a full-service provider of products, shipping and training software, and professional consulting services to assist the DG and HS&E professional to comply with national and international regulations.  See our full line of solutions at www.labelmaster.com