Labor Day has come and gone and the summer concluded with Labelmaster’s biggest annual event; the Dangerous Goods Symposium! This year’s meeting was held in our headquarters city of Chicago, Illinois. Hopefully many of you had an opportunity to attend; it’s one of our industry’s biggest get-togethers. If not, see the rest of our blog…
DG Digest: PHMSA Names a New Deputy Administrator; FRA and FMCSA Withdraw Sleep Apnea Standards
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 Symposium speaker Brian Beetz gets shippers’ toughest questions
Brian Beetz, Labelmaster’s Manager of Regulatory Affairs and Corporate Responsibility, will speak about recent updates to the 49 CFR during the 12th annual Dangerous Goods Symposium, September 6–8, 2017, in Chicago. Brian Beetz fulfills a role for Labelmaster that Labelmaster fulfills for its thousands of customers—making sure our products are compliant with the latest regulations and…
DG Digest: FMCSA Clarifies SDLAs and PHMSA Announces Special Permit Applications
Believe it or not, it’s already the calendrical Midsummer’s Day—the night of which, if you are a devotee of the works of William Shakespeare, when the woods, meadows, and forest fields are at their most magical, filled with sprites and faeries ready to set we mere mortals on paths of bold adventure—if you dare to…
DG Digest: PHMSA Seeks Input for U.N. Geneva Meeting and USPS Revises Lithium Battery Rules
The end of July finds the Federal Register having roared back to life after a period of relative quiet; most of the action revolves around information requests versus rulemaking, but still, given how slow things have been in the US regulatory world, the activity is significant. See all the action below. PHMSA The nation’s DG…
DG Digest: PHMSA’s pre-emption of New York’s levy on hazmat may set precedent
The approach of mid-July finds summer getting in to full swing; remember to pay attention to managing heat related issues in your workplace, and remind everyone to watch out on the road—many more pedestrians, especially children, are “out and about” in the long dusk of the summer. Safety first! Here’s this week’s regulatory action: PHMSA…
Game of Thrones 2017 preview (Hazmat Transport edition)
Last year, we convincingly demonstrated that the hugely popular HBO series Game of Thrones is really about hazmat transport. To recap: Game of Thrones and the hazmat transport business are each based on an extremely long, frighteningly complex book series—A Song of Ice and Fire and the Codes of Federal Regulations, respectively. Flammable liquids (Hazard…
DG Digest: PHMSA Special Permits Announced and the EPA Amends the ‘All Appropriate Inquiries’ Rule
The last Monday of the month (already!) finds a new week of regulatory activity at a slightly quicker pace than has been typical of late. A quick reminder to be safe in the coming summer heat! It’s easy to forget to keep our workplaces safe from heat related injury or illness—be sure your premises aren’t…
DG Digest: New York State Proposes Skirting Lax Federal Environmental Policy
PHMSA/OSHA June rolls the summer in with continuing low levels of US regulatory activity; perhaps the biggest news is the preparations under way for the big July UNECE meeting over in Geneva, Switzerland. Will new international proposals impact the regulatory outlook here? We’ll keep an eye on it for you! Meanwhile, here is this week’s…
13 things you may not know about lithium, batteries, and lithium batteries
With lithium batteries always a hot subject at meetings of the IATA Dangerous Goods Board and the ICAO Dangerous Goods Panel, you might be tempted to ask, What can they possibly say about lithium batteries that we don’t already know? Well, here are a few things … Lithium is the third smallest element and the…