Review - HR 9266 Introduced – Placarding for Refrigerants

Last month, Rep Carter (R,GA) introduced HR 9266, the Chief Chris Eddy’s Law. The bill would direct DOT to require the placarding of all refrigerated containers to communicate to emergency responders the potential of pressurization from such containers. No new funding is authorized by this legislation. 

I can find no legislation in the 118th Congress that would appear to be similar to HR 9266. A press release from Carter’s office notes: 

“In 2024, Georgia’s Greene County Fire Rescue Battalion Chief Chris Eddy, remembered as a “dedicated firefighter, leader, mentor, and loving husband and father,” was killed in the line of duty during an explosion caused by the rapid ignition of refrigerants inside a reefer storage container. Had the container been properly labeled, Eddy’s life could have been saved, as he would have known the dangers before approaching.” 

Moving Forward  

Carter is not a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration. This means that there is probably not sufficient influence to see the bill considered by the Committee. Because the bill would require placarding requirements before a study established the need for such placarding, I suspect that the Committee would not support the bill were it to be considered. 

For more details about the provisions of this bill and the incident that inspired it, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-9266-introduced-placarding-for - subscription required. 

Short Takes – 7-8-26 - Federal Register Edition

Nondiscrimination in Federally Assisted Programs of NASA-Effectuation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. NASA final rule. Summary: “NASA is amending its regulation implementing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI) for federally assisted programs to conform more closely to the statutory text and recent revisions by the Department of Justice (DOJ). This action removes provisions establishing disparate-impact liability. The rule also clarifies that Title VI reaches employment practices under this part only where employment is a primary objective of the Federal financial assistance or where intentional discrimination is shown. These changes align NASA's regulation with Title VI and promote consistency across Federal agencies.” 

Potential Use of the Outer Continental Shelf for Offshore Space Launch and Re-Entry Activities. Ocean Energy Management Bureau, request for information. Summary: “The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is seeking public input regarding the potential use of submerged lands and existing offshore facilities on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) for space launch-related activities, including the siting and operation of offshore space launch platforms and potential identification of re-entry sites on the OCS. This Request for Information (RFI) is intended to inform BOEM's understanding of technical, environmental, operational, legal, regulatory, and interagency considerations associated with such activities. BOEM is not proposing a specific project, lease, easement, right-of-way, or authorization through this RFI. BOEM invites written responses from industry, academic institutions, nongovernmental organizations, Tribal governments, state and local governments, Federal agencies, and members of the public. Information received will inform analysis regarding the extent to which internal evaluation, interagency coordination, and bureau consideration of whether additional guidance, policy development, or future actions may be appropriate.” 

Pipeline Safety: Repair Criteria for Hazardous Liquid and Gas Transmission Pipelines. PHMSA notice of proposed rulemaking. Summary: “PHMSA proposes to modernize and to clarify the anomaly response criteria in the Federal pipeline safety regulations for gas transmission and hazardous liquid pipelines. Driven by twenty years of technological development, modern engineering concepts allow operators to identify, schedule, and remediate pipeline anomalies more effectively and in a less costly manner. PHMSA proposes incorporating these improved safety practices into its regulations by finalizing certain safety improvements advanced in recent rulemakings for gas transmission pipelines and extending those changes to hazardous liquid pipelines. In addition, PHMSA proposes certain non-substantive revisions to its gas and hazardous liquid repair regulations to improve compliance.” 

Review - 2026 Unified Agenda – FAA and UAS

As I mentioned on Sunday, last week the Administration published their 2026 Unified Agenda. The DOT’s Agenda page lists 36 rulemakings from the Federal Aviation Administration. Five of those address uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) rulemakings. There are no DOT inactive rulemakings. There are just two completed FAA actions; neither of which deal with UAS regulations. 

Those five UAS rulemakings are: 

Commentary  

These five rulemakings related to UAS operations, even the fixed site designation rule, have the common thread of solidifying the place of uncrewed systems in the regulation of the national airspace. This will make counter UAS operations that much more complicated as law enforcement will have to contend with identifying whether a suspect UAS has a legal purpose in the airspace where it is operating. 

For more information on these five rulemakings, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/2026-unified-agenda-faa-and-uas - subscription required. 

Looking Back – 11-2-13, Nordex Alert

Nearly every morning I start my computer time by looking at information from Google about what happened in my blog in the previous 24 hours. Google, and blogspot.com is a Google service, provides interesting pieces of analytical data about my blog readership. One item of particular interest is the top ten blog posts each day. As you would expect, most of those posts were from the last couple of days, but with 16 years of publishing this blog, every once-in-a-while, a blog post from ancient history rises into that list. 

Today a blog post from November 2nd, 2013, made the list. It described an ICS-CERT alert about a cross-site scripting vulnerability wind turbine generator SCADA/HMI produced by Nordex. CISA’s predecessor used to issue ‘Alerts’ for reports of exploitable vulnerabilities while they were trying to work with the vendor to mitigate the issue. Unfortunately, these ‘Alerts’ were not subsequently tied to the Advisory that reported that mitigation. For this Alert the Advisory can be found here; that Advisory is as interesting as the alert. 

The Alert blog post also includes an interesting comment from Jake Brodsky about Shodan and the SHINE Project. 

BTW: The Darius Freamon Blog is still active. 

HR 9534 Introduced – Space Data for WFF

Last month Rep Whitesides (D,CA) introduced HR 9534, the Wildfire Response Modernization Act. The bill would require (subject to appropriations) the DOD’s Northern Command, in coordination with the Fire Guard program [link added] to “shall procure space-based commercial data and end products to support the efforts of the Department of Defense and the wildfire mission of the United States Northern Command by delivering timely, effective military support to the Federal Government and State, local, and Tribal governments to protect military readiness and installations, provide emergency military support to civil authorities, and conduct proactive wildland fire management.” 

Subsection 2(b) would specifically allow the Air Force to share space-based commercial data and end products with State, local, and Tribal governments to assist with firefighting efforts. 

Moving Forward  

Whiteside, and each of his four cosponsors, are members of the House Armed Services Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration. This certainly means that there may be sufficient influence to see the bill considered by the Committee. Nearly identical language has been included in HR 8800, the FY 2027 National Defense Authorization Act as §1605. No action should be expected from the HASC on HR 9534 until final action has been taken on the NDAA. 

Commentary  

This looks like a classic case of a person with a hammer seeing all problems as nails to be struck with that hammer. NASA has a somewhat similar program supporting wildfire fighting efforts, the Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS). Perhaps a better effort would be to require the Government Accountability Office to prepare a report comparing the two programs and suggesting ways to combine the two operations into a less expensive and more effective program, maybe under the supervision of the National Fire Administration (USNFA). 

7 Advisories Published – 7-7-26

Today CISA’s NCCIC-ICS published seven control system security advisories for products from Digi International, Labcenter, Simens (2), Hitachi Energy (2), and Hydro-Quebec. 

Advisories  

Digi Advisory - This advisory describes two vulnerabilities in the Digi International PortServer TS, Digi One SP IA. 

Labcenter Advisory - This advisory describes three vulnerabilities in the Labcenter Electronics Proteus. 

Siemens Advisory #1 - This advisory discusses 77 vulnerabilities in Siemens RUGGEDCOM RST2428P. 

Siemens Advisory #2 – This advisory describes a code injection vulnerability in the Siemens Mendix Studio Pro. 

Hitachi Energy Advisory #1 - This advisory discusses the Nginx-Rift vulnerability. 

Hitachi Energy Advisory #2 – This advisory describes a reliance on HTTP instead of HTTPS vulnerability in the Hitachi Energy PROMOD V. 

Hydro-Quebec Advisory - This advisory describes three vulnerabilities in the Hydro-Québec Le Circuit Electrique charging station backend.