Chemical Transportation Incidents – Week of 1-10-26

It has now been two months since DOT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration had posted the following notice on its Incident Statistics web page:

HazmatIncidentReportSearchTool
The ability to download pdf copies of incident filings or download complete datasets of the search results has been temporarily disabled. If you need pdf copies of incidents or relevant search criteria, please email relevant incident numbers to HMRequests@dot.gov.

This appears to have gone completely beyond any possibility of technical problems with the database. It looks like it is part and parcel of the attempts of the current administration’s ongoing efforts to reduce public access to information collected by the federal government.

The information in this database is safety information that should be readily available (and ‘readily’ specifically means searchable) to the public. PHMSA needs to restore public access to this information.