GAO Study Cites Flawed Data In PHMSA Wetlines Proposal

This story appears in the Sept. 16 print edition of Transport Topics.

Flawed data used by hazardous-materials regulators to justify a 2011 regulation call into question the basis for the rule that would require the installation of technologies to purge liquid from tank truck wetlines, according to a new government report.

“Because much of the economic benefit of the proposed wetline regulation would be the avoided fatalities and damages from wetline incidents, inaccuracies in these data raise concerns about their reliability for accurately quantifying some benefits of the proposed rule,” the Government Accountability Office said in a report made public last week.

Although the report stopped short of saying the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration will need to withdraw its proposal, GAO said the agency’s cost-benefit analysis overstated the rule’s benefits.

“I wouldn’t be comfortable if PHMSA went ahead with the analysis and the data that they were using,” Sara Vermillion, an assistant director with GAO, told Transport Topics.

GAO also said PHMSA “does not even have the right processes in place to count how often collisions occur involving flammable liquids in tank trucks’ unprotected loading and unloading lines.”

“Our purpose was not to say whether the rule should or should not go forward,” said Andrew Huddleston, a GAO senior analyst. “We think that’s PHMSA’s call. We were really looking at the data in terms of its implications for their analysis underlying the rule. ”

A PHMSA spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment. However, GAO said the U.S. Department of Transportation did not agree or disagree with the recommendations, but provided technical comments.

Boyd Stephenson, American Trucking Associations’ director of hazardous materials policy, said the report suggests the agency will not be able to move forward with the rule unless it collects new data.

“The report reinforces what the trucking industry has been saying for a long time: that there’s no real proof the rule is even needed,” Stephenson said.

GAO said that using PHMSA’s incident data, it attempted to identify wetlines incidents on the basis of common characteristics, such as those involving a tank truck or the release of flammable liquids.

“In doing so, we were unable to generate a list of incidents that approximated PHMSA’s list of wetline incidents,” the report said. “Specifically, our search of the database turned up approximately 270 incidents from January 1999 through March 2011 that PHMSA did not identify as wetline-related because they involved driver error or spills from areas other than wetlines, among other reasons.”

Trucking groups — including ATA and National Tank Truck Carriers — have opposed past attempts to require tank truck carriers either to protect wetlines or purge them of liquid to avoid future catastrophic mishaps in collisions with automobiles.

NTTC said last week it was “extremely pleased” with GAO’s findings.

“Based on this study, I now urge PHMSA to withdraw [the proposal] and allow the carrier and enforcement communities to collectively focus their talents and resources on legitimate safety concerns,” NTTC President Daniel Furth said in a statement.

GAO’s study was requested in last year’s MAP-21 transportation funding law, which blocked PHMSA from implementing its rule until the study is complete.

“Although PHMSA requires reporting of hazmat incidents through incident reporting forms, it does not require carriers to explicitly state on the form whether the incident is wetline-related,” GAO said.

The agency receives 15,000 to 20,000 hazmat incident reports annually, it said.

While PHMSA has made efforts to improve its data, the report said, “This has not affected how wetline incidents are reported, and inaccuracies remain.”

PHMSA issued a wetlines proposed rule in 2004 but withdrew the proposal in 2006 because it concluded that the benefits of the rule would not justify the costs.

The agency tried again in 2011 but came under criticism from the industry, which said the welding needed to retrofit purging systems on tankers could combust with trailer vapors, causing more fatalities than it would save.

GAO recommended that PHMSA improve its wetlines incident data by requiring that carriers specifically report wetlines incidents — and by improving its information on incident consequences.

The agency also should address uncertainty in the assumptions and data underlying its regulatory cost-benefit analysis, GAO said.