FMCSA Reaffirms Tank Rule Boosting Driver Requirements

This story appears in the Oct. 7 print edition of Transport Topics.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has issued a proposed rule that reaffirms an earlier requirement that truck drivers who haul bulk containers totaling at least 1,000 gallons of liquid obtain tank endorsements.

FMCSA’s Sept. 26 proposal clarifies a 2011 final rule that defined tank vehicles as both permanent tankers and trucks hauling liquids and gaseous materials in bulk tanks that are “strapped, chained, or otherwise secured to a vehicle.”

“This proposal essentially says FMCSA is sticking to its guns, and what the agency said earlier is what it’s going to enforce,” said John Conley, past president of National Tank Truck Carriers. “People were holding out hope that the agency was going to change the previous rule, which most states aren’t yet enforcing.”

Less-than-truckload drivers who haul bulk liquids are among those who could be most affected by the proposed rule.

Heidi McAuliffe, senior counsel for the American Coatings Association, said the endorsement requirement is “very problematic for our industry.”

The association represents a large segment of the paint and other industrial coatings industries.

“Our industry uses a ton of these portable tanks and intermediate bulk containers,” McAuliffe told Transport Topics. “We’ve had numerous incidents where a driver comes to pick up a load but doesn’t have a tank endorsement and can’t pick it up. It’s shrinking the available drivers’ pool.”

FMCSA said the proposal is meant to clarify two points not widely understood by the industry: That the quantity amounts apply regardless of the method of tank securement and that the transportation of tanks that are manifested as empty or as residue does not require the driver to have a tank-vehicle endorsement.

FMCSA said it does not have data on how many drivers have tank endorsements because states are not required to report that information.

Also, it does not know how many of the estimated 291,000 LTL drivers will need to obtain the tank endorsement.

The agency said requiring non-tank truck drivers who haul the large bulk liquid loads to take a knowledge test on tank vehicles will help reduce the risk of rollover crashes.

FMCSA said the average fee charged for a tank endorsement by states is $20, a cost that it dubbed a “minimal burden for an individual driver.”

Historically, the tank-vehicle endorsement has been closely tied to the hazardous materials endorsement.

“In other words, the drivers likely to be affected by this rule are only that small group which neither transported hazmat in bulk nor hauled nonhazardous products like milk or orange juice in tank vehicles large enough to require a tank endorsement. FMCSA believes that number to be relatively small,” the proposal said.

Boyd Stephenson, director of hazardous material policy for American Trucking Associations, said a problem with the proposal is portable tanks generally do not pose a slosh risk because often they are shipped full.

Stephenson said he appreciates that agency officials have at-tempted to clarify the rule but is disappointed “that they chose to ignore all of the evidence that portable tanks do not pose any sort of safety risk.”

“Now, if you have a load that has four 250-gallon intermediate bulk containers, you have magically become a tank truck,” Stephenson added.

He said that portable tanks do not necessarily alter a truck’s handling characteristics because they are typically shipped in full containers.

“No one wants to ship portable containers that are partially full because it’s not economical,” Stephenson said.

The agency said it will accept comments on the proposal through Nov. 25.

Randy Mullett, vice president of government relations and public affairs for Con-way Inc., told TT that his company thought the 2011 definition was “overkill” but saw the writing on the wall.

Con-way, ranked No. 3 on the TT100 list of the largest for-hire carriers in the United States and Canada, decided to get in front of the issue.

The Ann Arbor, Mich-based company required its 17,000 drivers to secure tank-vehicle endorsements when they renewed their commercial driver licenses, Mullett said.

“That will take a long time to go through the recycling of their CDLs,” Mullett said. “But we don’t want to find out that we don’t have a driver with an endorsement who can pick up a load of paint from a shipper.”