DOT to Drop Diesel, Paint from Hazmat Transport List

This story appears in the March 15 print edition of Transport Topics.

The Transportation Department announced last week it will drop some materials, including paint and diesel fuel, from the list of substances the agency considers dangerous enough to require hazmat motor carriers to file detailed security plans.

The new rule, published in the Federal Register on March 9 by DOT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, also clarifies various hazmat requirements related to security planning, training and documentation. It becomes effective Oct. 1.

In announcing the rule, the agency said the changes reflected its assessment of “specific transportation scenarios in which a terrorist could deliberately use hazardous materials to cause large-scale casualties and property damage.”

Richard Moskowitz, ATA’s vice president and regulatory affairs counsel, said he was pleased that the agency is taking a “risk-based” approach in the rule that adjusts the requirements for hauling hazardous materials.

“There are a lot of hazardous materials that do not rise to the level of being a weapon of mass destruction,” Moskowitz said.

“It’s certainly a positive step, I think, both for the industry that’s regulated and on the enforcement side, which can focus more on things that really could cause a problem,” said John Conley, president of National Tank Truck Carriers.

By taking such materials as paint off the list, Moskowitz said, the new regulation goes a long way toward ATA’s goal of relieving motor carriers from costly and burdensome paperwork associated with hazmat security requirements.

Still included on the list of “serious security risks” are such materials as gasoline, explosives and some toxic gases. 

PHMSA adjusted the list of hazmat it considers dangerous in collaboration with the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and the Federal Railroad Administration. The agency estimated that 800,000 shipments of hazardous materials move through the national transportation system each day.

For shipments that the agency said could be dangerous in the hands of terrorists, the carrier must file a security plan that includes “an assessment of possible transportation security risks and appropriate measures to address the assessed risks,” according to the rule.

At a minimum, the security plan must address personnel security and unauthorized access to hazmat.

Conley said he disagrees with the agency’s decision to remove diesel fuel from the list.

“I do have a concern that they have eliminated class 3 flammables,” Conley said. “You may remember that Timothy McVeigh found a very good use for diesel fuel, at least in his mind.”

(McVeigh, executed in 2001, was convicted of bombing the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, using a mixture of diesel fuel and fertilizer. The attack killed 168 people.)

Moskowitz said the new rule also specified that carriers are not required to file detail route-specific security plans but must include security plans for areas where hazmat incidental to transportation is loaded, unloaded or stored.

Carriers also must identify a senior management official responsible for the implementation of the security plan and include a vulnerability assessment in writing.

Security plans must be reviewed annually and, if revised, must include a plan to retrain employees who are affected by the changes.

ATA doesn’t agree that reviews should be annual but rather should be reviewed when conditions change, Moskowitz said.

Even a carrier that hauls only one material on the list must comply with all of the regulation’s requirements, he said. That issue could provide an economic incentive for a carrier to exit the hazmat hauling business, Moskowitz said.

Although it is not perfect, he said, the rule provides a good foundation and is sure to evolve in future months and years.

“We’re meeting with members of safety management council this week to share the list and discuss the new rule to determine if it does indeed provide relief for carriers,” Moskowitz said last week.