Environmental Regulations Overview

The Code of Federal Regulations

When Congress passes a law, it generally states its intent in general terms (for example, OSHA should "protect the health and safety of U.S. workers"). Translating this general guidance into something that is enforceable in court requires writing regulations which spell out how the Executive Branch expects to fulfill this intent. These regulations tend to be much more detailed than the law itself, and are collected in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). The Code of Federal Regulation includes all regulations written by any federal agency, from hazmat regulations to specifications for safe food products to the tax code. Therefore, it is important to know how to navigate the CFR to find relevant parts.

For hazardous materials issues, there are three prominent parts of the CFR: Probably the most prominent is 29 CFR 1910 , which contains all the OSHA regulations for general industry. Other parts of 29 CFR include other Department of Labor regulations (such as when people are required to be paid overtime).

A specific OSHA regulation has a more specific number. For example, the HAZWOPER standard is 29 CFR 1910.120. The HAZWOPER standard is about 10 pages long and every paragraph in the standard is numbered or lettered according to the standard CFR outline scheme (pretty close to the one you may have learned in grade school). For example, paragraph 1910.120(a)(1) tell us who is covered by the regulation:

"Scope. This section covers the following operations, unless the employer can demonstrate that the operation does not involve employee exposure or the reasonable possibility for employee exposure to safety or health hazards:"

The next paragraphs then go on to describe which operations are covered:

1910.120(a)(1)(i)
Clean-up operations required by a governmental body, whether Federal, state local or other involving hazardous substances that are conducted at uncontrolled hazardous waste sites (including, but not limited to, the EPA's National Priority Site List (NPL), state priority site lists, sites recommended for the EPA NPL, and initial investigations of government identified sites which are conducted before the presence or absence of hazardous substances has been ascertained);
1910.120(a)(1)(ii)
Corrective actions involving clean-up operations at sites covered by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA) as amended (42 U.S.C. 6901 et seq);
1910.120(a)(1)(iii)
Voluntary clean-up operations at sites recognized by Federal, state, local or other governmental bodies as uncontrolled hazardous waste sites;
1910.120(a)(1)(iv)
Operations involving hazardous waste that are conducted at treatment, storage, disposal (TSD) facilities regulated by 40 CFR Parts 264 and 265 pursuant to RCRA; or by agencies under agreement with U.S.E.P.A. to implement RCRA regulations; and
1910.120(a)(1)(v)
Emergency response operations for releases of, or substantial threats of releases of, hazardous substances without regard to the location of the hazard.

Most of the other regulations of interest in hazmat situations are found in the EPA regulations in 40 CFR under Protection of the Environment and DOT regulations found in 49 CFR under Transportation.

Question:

Which of the following questions would be answered in chapter of 49 CFR?

http://esf.uvm.edu/hazwoper HTML by Ralph Stuart
rstuart@uvm.edu

 Last Updated: November 24, 2008