PHMSA Sends LNG Amendments NPRM to OMB

Yesterday, OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) announced that it had received a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) from DOT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) on “Pipeline Safety: Amendments to Liquefied Natural Gas Facilities”. An advanced notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) was published on May 5th, 2025. 

According to the 2026 Unified Agenda entry for this rulemaking: 

“This rulemaking would update incorporated industry standards and revise all subparts of part 193 as needed. These updates to part 193 would address the risks associated with today's liquefied natural gas facilities, including permanent, small scale liquefied natural gas pipeline facilities as required by section 27 of the PIPES Act of 2016. These updates would also address section 110 of the PIPES Act of 2020 regarding operating and maintenance standards.” 

Short Takes – 8-21-26 - Federal Register Edition

Chemical Risk Assessment  

Ethylene Dibromide Draft Risk Evaluation Under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA); Notice of Availability and Request for Comment. EPA, notice of availability. Summary: “The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or Agency) is announcing the availability of and seeking public comment on the draft risk evaluation under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) for ethylene dibromide. The purpose of risk evaluations under TSCA is to determine whether a chemical substance presents an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment under the conditions of use (COUs), including unreasonable risk to potentially exposed or susceptible subpopulations identified as relevant to the risk evaluation by EPA, and without consideration of costs or non-risk factors. EPA is seeking comment on the draft risk evaluation for ethylene dibromide.” 

UAS Imports  

Proclamation 11055. Adjusting Imports of Unmanned Aircraft Systems and Unmanned Aircraft Systems Components into the United States. Executive Office of the President, proclamation. 

Information Collection Requests  

Submission for OMB Review, Comment Request; Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (THIRA)/Stakeholder Preparedness Review (SPR) Unified Reporting Tool. FEMA, 30-day ICR extension notice. Summary: “Each report must include a description of current capability levels, a discussion of the extent to which target capabilities identified in the applicable state homeland security plan and other applicable plans are unmet, and an assessment of resources needed to meet the preparedness priorities established under PKEMRA Section 646(e) (6 U.S.C. 746(e) [link added]), including: (i) an estimate of the amount of expenditures required to attain the preparedness priorities; and (ii) the extent to which the use of Federal assistance during the preceding fiscal year achieved the preparedness priorities. To meet this requirement, States, territories, urban areas, and Tribes first identify capability targets through THIRA and then assess against these targets in the SPR.” 

Chemical Transportation Incidents – Week of 7-18-26

Reporting Background 

See this post for explanation, with the most recent update here (removed from paywall). 

Data from PHMSA’s online database of transportation related chemical incidents that have been reported to the agency. 

Incidents Summary  

• Number of incidents – 645 (608 highway, 33 air, 4 rail, 0 water) 
• Serious incidents – 2 (2 Bulk release, 0 evacuation, 0 injury, 0 death, 0 major artery closed, 1 fire/explosion, 40 no release)  
• Largest container involved – 30,009-gal DOT 117R100W Railcar {Diesel Fuel} Misaligned manway cover. 
• Largest amount spilled – 300-gal Plastic IBC {Combustible Liquid, N.O.S.} IBC damaged in forklift strike. 
• Total amount reported spilled in all incidents – 645.0-gal 

NOTE: Links above are to Form 5800.1 for the incident described. 

Most Interesting Chemical: Organophosphorus pesticides, liquid, toxic: CAMEO Chemicals has 61 chemical datasheets with response recommendations for this UN/NA number. (Source: https://cameochemicals.noaa.gov/unna/3018). NOTE: This is another case where the listing is not “N.O.S.” but it may as well be. It may include Toxic Inhalation Hazard materials. 

Looking Back – 9-17-13 – Disclosure – An Opposing View

 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 September 2013, “Reader Comment – 09-17-13 – Disclosure – An Opposing View”, made the list. It takes a look at the issue of coordinated (and uncoordinated) disclosures of vulnerabilities. The reader comments on the post, from respected names in the community, point out how much interest this topic has driven. The discussion holds up today; it just has gotten more complex now that AI-detected vulnerabilities have been added to the mix. 

1 Advisory Published – 8-20-26

Today, CISA’s NCCIC-ICS published one control system security advisory for products from Johnson Controls. 

Advisories  

Johnson Controls Advisory - This advisory describes a cleartext storage of sensitive information in memory vulnerability in the Johnson Controls Simplex Incident Manager fire alarm management system. 

FCC Sends Satellite Spectrum Abundance Final Rule to OMB

Yesterday, the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) announced that it had received a final rule from the Federa Communications Commission (FCC) on “Satellite Spectrum Abundance (SB Docket No. 25-180)”. The notice of proposed rulemaking for this action was published on June 27th, 2025.  

According to the 2026 Unified Agenda Entry for this rulemaking: 

“On May 22, 2025, the Commission adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to seek further comment on ways to use the 12.7-13.25 GHz band (12.7 GHz band) and the 42.0-42.5 GHz band (42 GHz band) more efficiently and intensively. Specifically, the item seeks comment on the possibility of achieving more intensive use of the 12.7 GHz band by satellite communications through the removal of existing regulatory restrictions and the opening of the band to a wider range of satellite operations. Likewise, it seeks comment on the potential for more intensive use of the 42 GHz band by adding for the first time an allocation for fixed-satellite service (FSS). In both instances, the item seeks comment on ways to protect any incumbent spectrum users in the bands, as well as ways to protect spectrum users, particularly Federal operators, in adjacent bands.” 

Review - ChemLock Fact Sheets – August 2026

For those of you familiar with my “Looking Back” series of blog posts (latest here), there was almost one today about a post of mine from December 2021 on “Review - ChemLock Fact Sheets”. However, after reviewing the CISA ChemLock web site, I decided that it was probably more appropriate to do a new blog post on the topic. 

Fact Sheets 

Early in the CFATS program, DHS started producing a number of short informational brochures about various chemical security topics. Typically just two pages, these Fact Sheets provided a brief look at a specific topic and provided links to other, more detailed information about the topics. They were never designed to make someone a chemical security expert, but they did form a valuable library for chemical professionals to become more aware of security issues. 

When I wrote that first blog post (CFSN version here) there were just seven fact sheets on the ChemLock web site. Now there are three separate pages listing listing 14 separate ChemLock Fact Sheets: 

• ChemLock General Fact Sheets, 
• ChemLock Security Consideration Fact Sheets, and 
• ChemLock Security Goal Fact Sheets. 

Commentary  

The Office of Chemical Security continues to have a problem publicly sharing information on the ChemLock Program. While there have been training announcements from @CISAgov for various ChemLock classes (here is the most recent), I have not seen any other outreach efforts and no mentions of these new fact sheets. I understand that CISA is still recovering from the emasculation of the agency that occurred last year, but if they want to keep the ChemLock program going, they are going to have to start making more of an effort to bring facilities into the fold. Publicly talking about the program is an important part of that effort. 

For more information on these fact sheets, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/chemlock-fact-sheets-august-2026 - subscription required.