The United States Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) published a set of actions on a wide variety of special permit activities in today’s Federal Register.
PHMSA Releases Special Permit Incorporations
The United States Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) has published a final rule in today’s Federal Register which takes the important step of incorporating the terms of a number of Special Permits and/or Competent Authority Approvals into the regulations as standard language.
USDOT Issues Further Emergency Order Related to Crude Oil Transport and Classification
At approximately 1:15 AM EST on July 6th, 2013, a unit freight train of the cross-border operating Montreal, Maine, & Atlantic Railroad (MM&A) loaded with crude oil from the Bakken Shale Formations in North Dakota in the western United States suffered an as-yet unexplained failure of its automatic and manual braking systems while left unattended…
Crude Shippers face fallout from “Operation Classification”
Shippers of crude oil have now faced the initial fallout from the United States Department of Transportation’s (USDOT)/Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Agency’s (PHMSA)/Federal Railroad Administration’s (FRA) new “Operation Classification,” a spot inspection regimen designed to verify the accuracy of petroleum product classification and to try to increase the safety of crude shipments, particularly (but…
2013 Year-end Compliance Highlights (Part 2 of 3)
On Friday, December 6th, Labelmaster published the first in our three part series on 2013 Year-end Compliance Highlights that will continue to have an impact on workplace and transportation practices well into 2014. In the second installment, we highlight PHMSA DOT Final Rule. This final rule was published in Federal Register on October 31st and…
FRA/PHMSA Expand on Emergency Order 28 in Response to Quebec Derailment
FRA/PHMSA conduct “Operation Classification” enforcement action. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) and the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) continue to respond to the disastrous railroad derailment in La Megantic, Quebec on July 6th, 2013. In that incident, an unmanned and unattended Montreal, Maine, & Atlantic (MM&A) freight train carrying crude oil derailed after…
PHMSA Releases Halloween Revisions to the 49 CFR
With the end of the government’s partial shutdown, USDOT/PHMSA has returned to full operation and has joined the ranks of government agencies promulgating new, revised, or corrected regulatory information. On October 31st, 2013, the Federal Register contained a set of revisions to the 49 CFR representing the first substantive change to the regulations in the…
Reminder: Upcoming Transitional Date for Basic Shipping Description Sequence
On December 29, 2006, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) published a final rule in the Federal Register harmonizing certain aspects of the U.S. Hazardous Materials Regulations (HMR) with the International Maritime Dangerous Goods Code, the International Civil Aviation Organization’s Technical Instructions for the Safe Transport of Dangerous Goods by Air, and the…
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…
PHMSA Publishes Editorial Corrections and Clarifications Rule
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) published a final rule today that incorporates a host of minor amendments to the Hazardous Materials Regulations (HMR). The “RRR” designation in the final rule description indicates that the rule was developed under the Retrospective Regulatory Review initiative that was imposed on regulatory agencies through Executive Order…