STB to Hold Rail Service Hearing – 4-26/27-22

The Surface Transportation Board (STB) published a hearing notice in today’s Federal Register (87 FR 22009-22010) for “Urgent Issues in Freight Rail Service”. The hearing will address reported “challenges include tight car supply and unfilled car orders, delays in transportation for carload and bulk traffic, increased origin dwell time for released unit trains, missed switches, and ineffective customer assistance”, specifically including agricultural and energy product shipment delays.

The Board is calling for testimony from executive-level officials, including operating and human resources officials of four Class I railroads (BNSF, CSXT, NSR, and UP) to discuss their “rail service problems and their ongoing and planned efforts to improve service, including detailed plans outlining the steps needed to improve service”. Specifically, the STB is asking those railroads to “to address the extent to which crew shortages, particularly in the context of past employment reductions and current hiring difficulties, may have contributed to these service problems, and their plans, if any, to change and improve their hiring and employee retention policies to alleviate the acute crew shortages that appear to be among the central causes of the current service issues.”

The Board is also soliciting voluntary input from other railroads about how similar issues are impacting their operations and how they have dealt with the problem. The Board is also soliciting “rail customers, shipper organizations, labor organizations, and other interested parties to appear at the public hearing to discuss their service concerns and comment on carriers' efforts toward service recovery.”

Written comments may be submitted to the STB via their website (https://www.stb.gov/proceedings-actions/e-filing/; Docket # EP 770). The requirement to directly provide copies to other participants is waived in this docket. It does not appear that filings in this document will require filing fee payments.

Commentary

Certainly, part of this problem is associated with the employment volatility related to the COVID-19 pandemic. As far as I can tell, this will be the first public hearing by a federal regulatory agency that looks at this problem. It will be interesting to see how much the railroads feel that basic pay issues contribute to these problems and how much of it is related to working conditions. In either case, personnel costs are going to rise if there is going to be any real solution to this problem. Or there is going to be some sort of increase in automation.

I will be watching the filings in this docket for comments from chemical companies about how these shipping problems impact their operations. It will be interesting to see if railroads are using this problem to avoid certain hazmat transportation issues, particularly carrying toxic inhalation hazard chemicals.

CG Seeking CTAC Applicants

Today DHS posted a notice in the Federal Register (79 FR 23003-23004) announcing that the Coast Guard is seeking applicants for membership on the Chemical Transportation Advisory Committee (CTAC). CTAC provides advice and consultation to the Coast Guard's Marine Safety and Environmental Protection Directorate with respect to the water transportation of hazardous materials in bulk. 

The notice explains that applicants should have experience in:

• Chemical manufacturing;

• Marine handling or transportation of chemicals;

• Vessel design and construction;

• Marine safety or security; or

• Marine environmental protection

CTAC members are volunteers serving at their own expense, including travel and per diem. CTAC's membership includes six vessel operators, five chemical shippers, five environmental response sector representatives, and five environmental safety and health officials.  The remaining members represent non-profit classification societies. The notice does not explain which of positions are included in the 10 positions for which they are seeking applicants.

Applicants may submit their applications via email (Patrick.A.Keffler@uscg.mil) by June 9^th, 2014. Applications should include a a cover letter and resume and identify the position for which the application is being made.

Senate Passes HR 4076

Yesterday the Senate passed HR 4076, the HHEATT Act. As I predicted the bill passed by unanimous consent without debate.

Passage of this bill will effectively kill any possible consideration of S 2085 and S 2086. Sen. Reid made the decision yesterday to go with HR 4076 so the other two are dead. It would take a major political upheaval in the Senate to overcome the political inertia of legislative stare decisis.

Coast Guard Announces CTAC Meeting – 4-8-14

Today the Coast Guard published a meeting notice in the Federal Register (79 FR 14524-14525) for a meeting of the Chemical Transportation Advisory Committee. This three day meeting will start on April 8^th and will be held in Houston, TX. Subcommittees will meet the first two days and the final day will be a full committee meeting.

There were some minor security issues raised at the last CTAC meeting, but there were no subcommittee taskings. There were chemical safety issues raised and taskings assigned. Subcommittee meetings may address:

• Carriage requirements for biofuels and biofuel blends;

• Safety standards for the design of vessels carrying natural gas or using natural gas as fuel; and

• Safety standards for portable facility vapor control systems.

The full committee meeting will include receiving subcommittee reports. The Coast Guard will also make presentations on:

• Update on International Maritime Organization as it relates to the marine transportation of hazardous materials;

• Update on U.S. regulations as it relates to the marine transportation of hazardous materials;

• Update on Bulk Chemical Data Guide (Blue Book); and

• Vessel to vessel transfer of hazardous materials in bulk.

The Coast Guard is soliciting public input on the issues to be discussed at the meeting. Written comments may be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulations.gov; Docket # USCG-2014-0098) and should be submitted by April 3^rd, 2014. There will be brief public comment periods at each meeting; advance registration is requested.

Congressional Hearings – Week of 1-12-14

Well Congress will be back to work with a vengeance this week. There are a number of interesting hearings coming, two spending bills and maybe the introduction of a stand alone CFATS authorization in the House. The hearings include cybersecurity, intelligence, transportation and another DHS nomination.

Transportation

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is starting the surface transportation reauthorization process off with a full committee hearing on Tuesday. Looking at the witness list it doesn’t look like there will be any specific look at chemical transportation issues, but the topic of crude train hazards could rear its ugly head. That discussion would focus on concerns of affected parties not on any solutions.

The hearing web page does have a link to a nice summary document of the reauthorization coverage; again, no specific mention of chemical transportation issues.

DHS Nominations

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will hold a business meeting on Tuesday. According to the agenda they will be discussing the nominations of Susanne Spaulding to be Under Secretary of DHS for NPPD and John Roth for DHS IG. Ms Spaulding is holding the acting job of Under Secretary while Rand Beer was acting Secretary. Now that he has moved to the White House, it looks like she will get the job full time.

Terrorism Intelligence

Under the heading of you can’t protect against what you don’t understand there will be an interesting open intelligence hearing held by the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday. Since this is an open hearing don’t expect much in the way of intel details especially since the witnesses; two former congresscritters of note and a retired Army general, are more politically oriented than intelligence analysts.

Those witnesses are:

• Honorable Joe Lieberman, former Connecticut Senator

• Honorable Jane Harman, former California Congresswoman; Director, Wilson Center

• General (Ret.) Jack Keane, former Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Army

Cybersecurity

The Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection and Security Technologies (whew these subcommittee names are getting long) Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee will hold a mark-up hearing on Wednesday looking at HR 3696, the National Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure Protection Act of 2013.

As I noted in an earlier post, this is a fairly comprehensive critical infrastructure cybersecurity bill with broad bipartisan support. Cybersecurity bills have had a tough road to travel with nothing of significance getting to the White House. This bill may have a chance to complete the trip if it gets to the Senate floor by July 4^th. This is the first step on that journey; there won’t be any delay’s on Wednesday.

Spending Bills

As I mentioned in yesterday’s bill introduction post HJ Res 106 is a three-day continuing resolution. It will set the stage for the consideration of a bill that isn’t quite yet finished later this week. The current deadline is January 15^th, but HJ Res 106 will extend that to Saturday. The House leadership is taking quite a chance on this short term resolution as it will be considered under suspension of the rules (vote scheduled for Tuesday) which requires a 2/3 vote margin to pass. The Democratic leadership is on-board for the short term extension so it should pass as long as no one upsets the fiscal conservative Republicans too much in the meantime.

Since we haven’t seen the final bill being crafted by the two Appropriations Committees (it will probably be introduced on Monday or Tuesday), it is hard to judge how smooth that consideration process will be. Right now there doesn’t appear to be any discussion/threats of another federal funding fiasco so maybe things will work out for a final vote in the Senate on Saturday.

CFATS Extension

Also mentioned yesterday is the possiblility of CFATS extension bill introduction from Rep. McCaul (R,TX), probably on Thursday. It appears that the House Homeland Security staff has touched all of the appropriate bases on the bill, but no one seems interested in talking about what they have been told. McCaul has been doing a good job lately with bipartisan bills so this one may have a chance of passage.

Unfortunately, the big impediment to passage in the House is not the votes, but rather the committee conflict with the Energy and Commerce Committee (and to a lesser extent the Appropriations Committee) over who will be responsible for overseeing the program. One would expect a bill from the Homeland Security Committee Chair to cut out the other two committees and that might stop the bill from ever getting to the floor.

It will be interesting to see how McCaul tries to finesse that problem.

Congressional Hearings Week of 9-29-13

Well the shutdown is still looming, but there are three hearings currently scheduled for this week that might be of interest to readers of this blog, if they are held. They will look at freight transportation, a committee business hearing and threats to the homeland.

Transportation

The only House hearing will be held by a special panel from the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on Tuesday. This is part of a continuing series and the public panel includes Mr. F. Edmond Johnston, III, Sustainability Manager, DuPont. This means that at least some chemical issues will be raised.

Business Meeting

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will be holding a business meeting this evening. There still is not an agenda on their web page, but I understand that the nomination of Ms. Spaulding to be Undersecretary for NPPD at DHS will be addressed.

Threats to Homeland

The same Senate committee will be holding a hearing on Thursday to look at the current status of threats to homeland security. The witness list includes:

• Rand Beers. Acting DHS Secretary;

• Matthew G. Olsen,Director, National Counterterrorism Center; and

• Sean M. Joyce, Deputy Director, FBI

I expect that this will be a fairly wide ranging but superficial look at the current threat situation. Cybersecurity will certainly come up, but I doubt that there will be any mention of threats against chemical facilities. There will be no discussion of any specific threats and general threats will be covered in only the broadest vaguest terms since this is not a classified hearing.

HR 2610 Introduced – FY 2014 DOT

As I noted earlier Rep. Latham (R,IA) introduced HR 2610, the Departments of Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill, 2014. I normally follow this bill for chemical transportation issues, but this year it also includes a couple of minor cybersecurity references. As is typical there is little of specific interest in the actual language of the bill beyond the funding levels of the specific agencies. We have to look at the Committee Report to see the details that might be of real interest.

Cybersecurity

The Appropriations Committee has been generally supportive of department internal cybersecurity requests so far, but that is not true with this bill. They reduced the DOT internal network cybersecurity spending from $10 million to $2 million, noting [Report, pg 10] that:

“The Committee recommendation includes $2,000,000 to support the Secretary’s Cyber Security Initiative, which is $4,000,000 below the budget request and $8,000,000 less than the fiscal year 2013 enacted level. Because of the fiscal year 2013 continuing resolution, this account received $10,000,000, a $4,000,000 increase over that year’s budget request. With the funding provided in fiscal year 2014, the Department will receive a total of $12,000,000 over two years, equal to the requests of the two fiscal years.”

I sure hope that the DOT CIO is spending this year’s money wisely. If this stands through the legislative process, next year will be tight in DOT cybersecurity programs.

The only other cybersecurity mention comes in the Committee Report in the section concerning the FAA. Under the heading “Cyber Security and Protecting the National Airspace System” [pg 24] the Committee notes that:

“As FAA continues to make billion dollar investments in NextGen, the Agency must ensure that new systems are more secure than the legacy systems they replace or supplement, and new threats are not inadvertently introduced. A clear understanding of threats, vulnerabilities, and countermeasures is absolutely essential.”

No new money for the effort but the Committee does recommend that “FAA needs to take full advantage of ongoing DOD cyber work, which could provide invaluable insights on how to protect air traffic control systems.”

Interdepartmental Conflicts

The Appropriations Committee has an interesting oversight responsibility because of its control of the purse strings over the entire federal government. It gets a chance to see and influence/control competition between different departments of the Executive Branch to make sure that there isn’t too much duplication of work. There are two such cases addressed in this report; one dealing with security and one with safety.

In the report’s discussion of the Federal Transit Authority (FTA) spending it notes that the Committee has included language in the bill “prohibiting FTA from creating a permanent office of transit security” [Report pg 52]. It goes on to explain that the lead agency for transportation security is DHS in all modes “including rail and transit lines”.

In the safety case the issue is not so clear cut. In the PHMSA section of the Report [pg 65] they note that:

“The Committee is advised that the approval processes for Self Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA) respirator cylinders by both PHMSA and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health may be duplicative and potentially restrictive of competitive options.”

Since the division of labor here is not so clear, so the Committee resorts to the old congressional favorite; a report. PHMSA is given one year to report to the Committee “on whether these approval processes can be made more efficient”.

Special Permit Fees

The Obama Administration has each year attempted to raise funds for DOT by including a new fee for the processing and enforcing of PHMSA special permits and approvals in their budget proposal. Each year the Appropriations Committee has refused to include it in the spending bill. This year is no different, if somewhat less strident in their rejection. They do note [Report pg 64] that:

“Additional fees within this account should be considered in the context of authorizing legislation originating in the committees of jurisdiction.”

Moving Forward

This bill is likely to come to the floor in the next two weeks under an open rule. Various amendments will be proposed with many being adopted. It will then be ignored by the Senate who will probably adopt a modified version of S 1243 and then substitute its language for HR 2610 as adopted by the House. As I noted in my post on that bill the Senate Appropriations Committee also addressed the FAA cybersecurity issue as well as the PHMSA fee issue.

This bill may make it to the President’s desk before October 1^st, but that isn’t real likely in the current legislative atmosphere. It is still too early to tell if we will get an omnibus spending bill at the last minute or if there will be a continuing resolution. Early money would probably go for the CR.

Bills Introduced – 7-8-13

Congress is back in town but it turns out that there were actually two bills introduced during the 4^th of July Recess (July 2^nd to be exact), both spending bills. Only one of those might be of specific interest to the chemical transportation community:

HR 2610 Latest Title: Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2014 Sponsor: Rep Latham, Tom (R,IA)

I’ll take a closer look at this and provide specific details in a later post.

STB Announces RSTAC Vacancies

The Surface Transportation Board (STB) published an advisory council vacancy notice in Monday’s Federal Register (78 FR 40823-40824; available on-line today). The notice announces two vacancies on the Railroad-Shipper Transportation Advisory Council (RSTAC) one for an at-large (public interest representative) and one for a large shipper representative. According to the notice; “RSTAC focuses on issues of importance to small shippers and small railroads, including car supply, rates, competition, and procedures for addressing claims).

The STB is soliciting suggestions for people to be appointed to fill these vacancies. The notice contains the necessary qualifications and requirements for the positions. Suggestions should be submitted via the STB’s E-Filing link (http://www.stb.dot.gov). Submissions need to be made by July 31^st, 2013.

Update for Tomorrow’s FY 2014 Transportation Spending Bill Markup

The Subcommittee on Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies of the House Appropriations Committee updated the web site for tomorrow’s markup hearing for the Transportation and HUD FY 2014 spending bill. They have provided a link to the subcommittee draft of the bill that will be marked up.

A quick review of the document does not reveal any specific chemical transportation language. The only cybersecurity language in the bill concerns funding for information security programs within the Department to protect Department networks. 

DOT Announces Freight Advisory Committee Meeting – 6-25-13

Today the Department of Transportation published a meeting notice in the Federal Register (78 FR 33888-33889) for the initial meeting of the newly formed National Freight Advisory Committee (NFAC).

Since this is the first meeting of NFAC the agenda is more than a little vague. The notice mentions the following topics that will be discussed:

• Representatives from the U.S. Department of Transportation will provide an overview of MAP-21 freight provisions and an update of the Department's progress implementing them.

• The Committee will begin to develop a list of tasks to complete and prioritize those tasks for the Department to consider.

The agenda will be posted on the NFAC Web site in advance of the meeting. Interestingly that web site is not currently available to the public; you get an “Access denied” message when you attempt to access it. Hopefully that is because the site is still under development (which would have made an ‘Under Development’ message much friendlier) and not because someone is attempting to restrict access to this public entity.

DOT is soliciting public participation in this meeting. Limited spaces are available for public attendance. Advance registration (via email to freight@dot.gov) is thus recommended. Written comments on the agenda topics (if/when it becomes publicly available) may be addressed to the same email address (they are apparently not using the Federal eRulemaking Portal, so the written comments will not be readily available for public inspection). There is no mention of the meeting being web cast (please join the 21^st Century).

Congressional Hearings – Week of 5-26-13

Congress may be out of Washington for the Labor Day Recess (the ultimate long weekend; they come back to work on 6-3-13), but that doesn’t mean that they don’t hold hearings. There are two hearings scheduled on the West Coast this coming week and one may be of interest to the chemical safety community.

The Panel on 21st Century Freight Transportation, a special subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will be holding a field hearing on “How Southern California Freight Transportation Challenges Impact the Nation” on Thursday in San Bernardino, CA. According to a Committee press release the panel will be looking at “how the region’s unique transportation challenges impact the movement of freight throughout the entire Nation”. Issues affecting chemical transportation and Hazmat may be addressed.

There is no indication on the Committee web site that this hearing will be web cast.

Bills Introduced 3-7-13

Yesterday was pretty much a snow day in Washington but some work did get done in Congress. I’m stretching the ‘of interest to the chemical safety/security’ community definition today to include these three bills:

S 485 Latest Title: A bill to exempt certain class A CDL drivers from the requirement to obtain a hazardous material endorsement while operating a service vehicle with a fuel tank containing 3,785 liters (1,000 gallons) or less of diesel fuel. Sponsor: Sen Roberts, Pat (R,KS)

HR1026 Latest Title: To exempt certain class A CDL drivers from the requirement to obtain a hazardous material endorsement while operating a service vehicle with a fuel tank containing 3,785 liters (1,000 gallons) or less of diesel fuel. Sponsor: Rep Neugebauer, Randy (R,TX)

S 491 Latest Title: A bill to amend the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 to modify provisions relating to grants, and for other purposes. Sponsor: Sen Lautenberg, Frank R. (D,NJ)

The first two are part of a continuing effort to reduce the hazardous materials transportation safety rule impacts on farmers. I haven’t seen the actual wording of these two companion bills to see how carefully they apply just to farmers, but that appears to be the intent. I don’t think that I’ll be watching these bills too closely; this is probably the last time that I’ll mention them here.

The CERCLA grant bill could go either way. I’ll want to take a closer look at the actual text, but this may be of interest to the emergency response community that has to deal with chemical facilities.

FRA Publishes PTC Amendments Final Rule

Yesterday the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) published their PTC Amendments Final Rule in the Federal Register (77 FR 28285-28305). This rule eases some of the requirements for removing sections of rail line from the requirements to install positive train controls (PTC). These rules only pertain to track segments that “do not transport poison- or toxic-by-inhalation hazardous (PIH) materials traffic and are not used for intercity or commuter rail passenger transportation as of December 31, 2015” (77 FR 28285).

This rule is being issued in response to a Settlement Agreement reached in a suit by the Association of American Railroads (AAR). It eliminates two qualifying tests previously required to remove a line segment from PTC implementation. Those tests were based upon alternative route analysis and the residual risk analysis.

Complicates TIH Shipping Issues

As I noted in an earlier blog, it would seem that the removal of these two tests, particularly the alternative route analysis test, will further complicate the toxic inhalation hazard (TIH) routing issues that plague relations between TIH shippers and the railroads. This issue is addressed in the preamble to the rule with the FRA stating that “even where a railroad is able to reroute its PIH materials traffic in accordance with the PHMSA regulations, resulting in future PIH materials traffic needing to traverse a line segment that does not have a PTC system in order to travel from its source to its destination, FRA does not view such rerouting as a barrier to future PIH materials traffic” (77 FR 28292).

I also noted in a separate blog post that this rule could increase the number of rate setting disputes that the Surface Transportation Board will be required to hear. This rule acknowledges this potential problem; noting that “FRA recognizes that PTC system implementation may affect STB's review of rates” (77 FR 28292); but then ignores the issue in this rule.

Public Comments

This is a final rule and it is effective on July 13, 2012. Apparently anticipating objections to this rule (it is a tad bit controversial) the FRA has set a deadline for petitions for reconsideration on the same date. Those petitions will be published on the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.regulations.gov; Docket # FRA-2011-0028). Public comments on those petitions are being solicited (they really do expect petitions apparently) need to be submitted via the same venue by August 27, 2012.

Oh, by the way, FRA is already considering the next set of amendments to the PTC rules. There is no mention of the topics to be covered in such amendments, just the notice that a new notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) is already in the works.