August is the month that Washington, DC takes off. Congress is not in session and many officials get of town—the city is famous for its humid and uncomfortable August weather. However, despite this the last week was fairly busy on the regulatory front, with a number of agencies announcing relevant action. Here’s the update: PHMSA…
DG Digest: US Air Force Updates AFMAN and the EPA Revises TSCA Handling of the Materials List
The summer quiet continues around the regulatory scene these last two weeks, with relatively minimal action. Biggest news of the period was the issuance of a revised US Air Force “AFMAN,” which serves all of the US armed services as their guide to shipping hazardous materials. It was the first such issuance in several years—2009,…
DG Digest: Lithium Batteries in the News and PHMSA adds 60 Days to Comment Period on Bulk Flammable Liquid Carriage
Today is the first day of Spring! I hope the day finds you someplace that is getting warmer and brighter as the year progresses. Progress on the regulatory front remains slow, as the “freeze” continues to make its presence felt through a still-glacial pace of new regulatory releases. On the HM-215N front, the song remains…
DG Digest: FMCSA Proposes Speed Limiting Devices, PHMSA May Update HMT, and China Takes Measures to Hault Zika Spread from U.S.
Together we marked the somber fifteenth anniversary of the September 11th attacks in the week just concluded. I hope that everyone had an opportunity to consider the impact to our nation of so terrible an event, and what it has meant to us as we have moved forward in to too often troubled times. Let…
DG Digest: FRA, PHMSA, TSA, FMCSA and OSHA Fines Increasing
Last week’s DG Digest was pre-empted by an otherwise very busy schedule here at Labelmaster; so, this week, we’ll be covering the last two weeks instead of just one. Gosh it’s been busy! Whatever happened to the “lazy crazy hazy days of summer?” Gone with the song, apparently. Herewith, the action on the DG/EH&S front…
New Year, New Revisions to DG Regulations for IATA and IMO
As often occurs at the turn of the year, both the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) have released updates to their respective Dangerous Goods Regulations. In the case of the IATA regulations, much of it has to do with revisions to rules surrounding lithium batteries. Please see our relevant…
Lithium Batteries: Notable Changes Result from PHMSA’s Final Rule — HM-224F
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s new final ruling on the safe transport of lithium batteries was published today in the Federal Register. The adopted amendments in the final rule pertain to 49 CFR, Parts 171, 172, 173, and 175. Read the full text here.
A Somber Anniversary—25 Years after the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill
It is a truism that regulations, whether related to transport, safety, building codes, etc, are to a degree “written in blood” in a turn of phrase often used by safety professionals; that is, often the genesis of a particular rule is based on the lessons learned from an incident which sadly often involved a tragedy…
Aerosols: Is Further Harmonization Needed?
With so much focus over the years on harmonizing the dangerous goods regulations, one commodity that can definitely benefit from a focused review is the entry for aerosols. This is particularly a concern relative to U.S. regulations, where the definition for aerosols is not aligned with the international definition. In §171.8 of the Hazardous Materials…
Required Regulatory Change Affects Marking Text Size for Hazard Class Labels
Both the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and International Maritime Organization (IMO) recently changed the required size of the text to be used when marking the United Nations Identification Number (UNID Number) on packages of dangerous goods/hazardous materials. The UNID Number is a four-digit numerical designator (for example, UN1993) which provides an internationally recognized identification number…