Friday, December 1, 2017

PHMSA Sends ECP Breaking Decision to OMB

Yesterday the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) announced that it had received from DOT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration (PHMSA) their Notice of the Department of Transportation's Decision on ECP Braking for review.

While this was not published in the 2017 Unified Agenda update, it appears that this has been prepared in response to a congressional mandate in 2015 FAST Act (PL 114-94). In §7311 Congress addressed the PHMSA rule {174.310(a)(3)(ii)} on the use of electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) breaks on highly-hazardous flammable trains (HHFT); requiring additional testing of the efficacy of ECP breaking systems in preventing damage to railcars used to transport crude oil.

While the National Academy of Sciences final letter report was not able to make a conclusive statement “concerning the emergency performance of ECP breaks relative to other breaking systems” (pg ii), congress mandated {§7311(c)(2)} that by December 4th of this year DOT would either publish a notice of why the ECP mandate was justified or, if not justified, repeal the requirement.


It will be interesting to see how the anti-regulatory Trump administration comes down on this decision.

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