By Frits Wybenga, Senior Technical Advisor    September, 2007

HAZMAT Packager & Shipper's exclusive report on FY2005 penalty actions by the U.S. DOT and the U.S. Coast Guard provides insight on the most commonly cited violations of the Hazardous Materials Regulations and is intended as both a decision making and training guide for those who must comply with the rules.

PHMSA recently posted the FY2005 Penalty Action Report on its website. A review of the penalty actions provides some perspective about what inspectors from each of the DOT agencies focus on in their inspections. By studying the report and coming to understand the violations brought against companies with similar hazmat operations, this sheds light on what DOT inspectors are focusing and could help company compliance personnel correct deficiencies in their own operations before they are faced with a DOT inspection. At the same time it helps identify areas hazmat trainers should focus on when providing hazmat training.

The following table provides a brief overview of the results of the hazmat enforcement programs of DOT and the US Coast Guard. The amount collected in FY05 is considerably less than that collected in FY04 with the amount differing by approximately $2.7M, or a 25% decrease from the FY04 amount. Most of the decrease is attributable to the Federal Railroad Administration where the amount of collected penalties went from $2.7M in FY04 to $0.3M in FY05. The other agencies showed markedly smaller fluctuations. The table shows that shippers are the primary focus of each agency. The balance of the focus of each agency is usually on carriers except for PHMSA which places extensive enforcement effort on packaging manufacturers and cylinder retesters.
 




    

With the penalty actions of most agencies extending over many pages, detailed review can be daunting. For these agencies, a summary of the 15 most frequently cited regulations gives an indication of what regulations inspectors may be focusing on when performing an inspection.* The top 15 regulations cited represent at a minimum 80% of regulatory citations of each agency. With only 15 cases completed by the US Coast Guard in FY 2005 and little repetition of regulations violated, interested readers would probably benefit more from examining the few cases than a summary. For each of the other agencies, a summary of the most commonly cited regulations is provided. These are accompanied with a limited number of noteworthy comments but for the most part the summaries speak for themselves.

Enforcement by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
A review of the penalty data suggests that at least half of the FAA cases result from reports by carriers, possibly when a package has been mishandled and a liquid begins to flow from the package. For these cases, with so many basic requirements being cited, it appears the shipments may have been undeclared with the shipper having made no attempt to comply with the regulations. This is evidenced by the frequent citing of requirements of the most basic nature such as the applicability requirements of the HMR, and shipping paper, labeling, and package marking requirements.

With FAA and PHMSA placing so much emphasis on closure requirements, it is interesting to note that §173.24(f), which would likely be cited if a closure failed, was only noted 21 times. This would suggest the overall occurrence of closure failures is relatively low.

A disturbing finding is that §173.27(b)(1) and (2) were referenced on 69 occasions, suggesting that number of attempts were made to transport materials forbidden from carriage on passenger or cargo aircraft.

Compared to other agencies, the number of carrier operational violations is relatively low. The most common Part 175 regulation cited is §175.30 (35 occasions), presumably when the carrier was found to have accepted a hazmat package not in complete compliance with the regulations.

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