The Hazardous Materials Transportation Act, enacted in 1975 as part of a law dealing with transportation safety, strengthened the 1970 Hazardous Materials Transportation Control Act. The impetus for this act was increased illegal, or midnight, dumping; increasing spills; and poor enforcement. Illegal dumping increased in the 1970s as many landfills began to refuse to take hazardous waste, thus dramatically increasing the costs of disposal. The illegal dumping took place in vacant lots, along highways, or actually on the highways. In the congressional debate on the act, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), which administers the law, estimated that 75% of all hazardous waste shipments violated the existing regulations. This poor enforcement was due to a lack of inspection personnel, fragmented jurisdiction and lack of coordination among the Coast Guard, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal Highway Administration, and the Federal Railroad Administration.
The law establishes minimum standards of regulation for the transport of hazardous materials by air, ship, rail, and motor vehicle. The DOT regulates the packing, labeling, handling, vehicle routing, and manufacture of packing and transport containers for hazardous materials transportation. The hazardous materials and wastes covered by the law, based on DOT regulations, are those on the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) list and certain substances designated by the Environmental Protection Agency under the authority of Superfund. All hazardous waste transporters must register as such with the proper state and federal agencies; they must use the RCRA uniform manifest system to track the pick-up and delivery of all shipments; they must only deliver to permitted hazardous waste facilities; they must notify the proper agencies of any accidents; they must clean up any discharges that occur during the transportation process. The law also provides a significant role for the states, though there are provisions in the act to prevent overly strict state and local regulations of hazardous waste transport. The Hazardous Materials Transportation Act includes numerous information requirements, also designed to increase public safety. Each vehicle carrying hazardous materials must display a sign identifying the hazard class of the cargo, and emergency response information has been required since 1990. Each shipment must also be accompanied by its RCRA hazardous waste manifest.
The manifest system is part of the RCRA "cradleto-grave" approach to regulating hazardous materials. The system is supposed to prevent illegal dumping, since hazardous waste transporters could not accept hazardous waste without a manifest, and, similarly, hazardous waste treatment and disposal facilities could not accept waste from transporters without a manifest. Since all hazardous materials could be traced and accounted for through such manifests, illegal dumping should stop. Nevertheless, it is unclear how much effect the manifest system has had on illegal dumping since such dumping is still less costly than proper disposal.
In 1990, the Hazardous Materials Transportation Uniform Safety Act was passed, the first major amendments to the 1975 Act. Poor enforcement of the existing law was the stimulus for action. The law focused on better enforcement by increasing the number of inspectors, increasing the civil and criminal penalties for violation of the regulations, and helping states better respond to accidents involving hazardous materials.
Dower, R. C. "Hazardous Wastes." Public Policies for Environmental Protection, edited by P. R. Portney. Washington, DC: Resources for the Future, 1990.
Mazmanian, D., and D. Morell. Beyond Superfailure: America's Toxics Policy for the 1990s. Denver: Westview Press, 1992.
Periodicals
"Hazardous Materials Law Strengthened." Congressional Quarterly Almanac 46 (1990): 380–82.
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