Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration Information Collection Request: General Investigation Questions/Safety

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (“PHMSA”) published a June 12th Federal Register Notice stating that it has submitted an Information Collection Request (“ICR”) that is described as:

…development of general investigative questions that may be used by PHMSA’s Office of Hazardous Materials Safety (“OHMS”) field operations personnel when investigating general safety issues.

The stated objective of the questions is to facilitate fact-gathering efforts during general investigations related to PHMSA’s safety oversight responsibilities.

PHMSA states that the questions will not impose any new reporting or recordkeeping requirements. Instead, it states the goal is to develop a:

…pool of commonly used questions that can be tailored as appropriate based on the specific circumstances of a given investigation.

Examples provided by PHMSA include questions addressing:

• Operating procedures.
• Training practices.
• Incident reporting.
• Hazard analysis.
• Other safety-related topics.

The Federal Register Notice lists the various questions under the following categories:

• Introduction questions.
• General hazardous materials information.
• Hazardous material training.
• Emergency/incidents.
• Safety.
• Industry process/SOPs.
• Carriers/shippers/testers/manufacturers.
• Packaging.

An ICR is a set of documents that describes reporting, recordkeeping, survey, or other information that a federal government agency such as PHMSA collects from 10 or more members of the public. The Paperwork Reduction Act requires that every federal agency obtain approval from the Office of Management and Budget before collecting the same or similar information from 10 or more members of the public.

The ICR must provide:

• A description of the information collected.
• The reason the information is needed.
• An estimate of the time and cost for the public to answer the request.

A copy of the Federal Register Notice can be downloaded here.