Review - PHMSA Publishes Next Set of Hazmat FAQs – 8-18-23 – Incident Reporting

Today, DOT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) published a notice in the Federal Register (88 FR 56702-56705) on “Hazardous Materials: Frequently Asked Questions – Incident Reporting”. This is part of a continuing effort at PHMSA to convert existing Letters of Interpretation into more broadly applicable frequently asked questions (FAQs) that was started [removed from paywall] in March of 2022.

Public Comments

PHMSA is soliciting public comments on this proposed set of FAQ and responses. Comments may be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulations.gov; Docket #PHMSA-2021-0109). Comments should be submitted by September 18^th, 2023.

Commentary

I think that this project of converting existing historical letters of interpretation into broadly applicable FAQ’s is a commendable information sharing effort on the part of PHMSA. The only problem is I am unable to find the FAQ’s from the initial tranche published in the Federal Register by PHMSA in March of 2022 on the PHMSA website. There is a “Hazardous Materials Safety FAQs” page, but it was last updated on August 23, 2019 and contains none of the questions proposed in the earlier notice.

If PHMSA is going to continue with this program, each subsequent notice in the Federal Register should contain a link to the web site where PHMSA is going to make these FAQ’s and responses readily available to the public. And to be fair, this notice should be updated with that link.

I will be posting this commentary as a comment on this notice.

 

For more details about this notice, including a list of the proposed FAQ’s, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://open.substack.com/pub/patrickcoyle/p/phmsa-publishes-next-set-of-hazmat - subscription required.