Pirate Busters - American Shipper
Pirate Busters - American Shipper
Pirate Busters - American Shipper
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Battle over batteries<br />
The Airline Pilots Association (ALPA) is using several<br />
recent incidents to renew its call, over the objection of<br />
battery makers, for a temporary ban on lithium batteries<br />
carried as shipments on passenger and all-cargo planes.<br />
The rechargeable batteries are commonly used to<br />
power laptops, cell phones, cameras, MP3 players and<br />
other electronic devices. Lithium batteries can shortcircuit,<br />
overheat and catch fire. The trade association<br />
asked the Department of Transportation to prohibit bulk<br />
battery shipments on commercial aircraft until new<br />
regulations are in place to ensure their safe transport.<br />
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration<br />
(PHMSA) is drafting a rule addressing lithium<br />
battery safety, but ALPA said in an Aug. 20 letter to<br />
Acting Deputy Administrator Cynthia Douglas that<br />
immediate action is needed to ensure aviation safety.<br />
“We have been most fortunate that the lithium-ion<br />
battery malfunctions … did not cause an accident, but<br />
luck is not a sound safety strategy,” ALPA President<br />
John Prater wrote.<br />
The DOT banned the shipment of non-rechargeable<br />
lithium batteries from passenger aircraft in late 2004.<br />
Non-rechargeable batteries pose a severe threat because<br />
lithium fires cannot be extinguished by Halon 1301, an<br />
FAA-certified fire suppressant. Rechargeable batteries are<br />
not as flammable and can be put out by fire extinguishers.<br />
During the summer, fire, smoke or evidence of fire<br />
associated with battery shipments occurred aboard<br />
three separate airliners, including a FedEx plane at<br />
Minneapolis-St. Paul airport with about 1,000 smokeless<br />
cigarettes and a UPS plane in Honolulu.<br />
In 2006, a battery fire destroyed a UPS freighter that<br />
made an emergency landing in Philadelphia. Following<br />
the incident, the National Transportation Safety Board<br />
recommended the batteries be more strictly regulated<br />
and tested. The Federal Aviation Administration has<br />
documented dozens of incidents involving lithium- and<br />
lithium-metal batteries.<br />
Computer makers in 2006 recalled millions of older<br />
generation batteries after a series of laptop fires.<br />
The ALPA has urged transportation officials for five<br />
years to classify lithium batteries as dangerous goods<br />
and require special packaging, labeling, marking, testing<br />
and pilot notification.<br />
“Now, the evidence of a clear and present danger is<br />
mounting. We need an immediate ban on these dangerous<br />
goods to protect airline passengers, crews and cargo,”<br />
said Mark Rogers, director of ALPA’s dangerous goods<br />
programs, in a statement. “If we are not able to secure<br />
these protections for the traveling public through swift<br />
regulatory action, we will ask Congress to immediately<br />
intervene to ensure the safe shipment of lithium batteries.”<br />
Transportation unions have been pushing since the<br />
Obama administration took office to include the changes<br />
in the FAA reauthorization bill.<br />
A ban threatens emergency shipments of batteries<br />
needed to power life-saving medical equipment such as<br />
portable oxygen concentrators, and restricts missioncritical<br />
battery deliveries to U.S. military installations, the<br />
Rechargeable Battery Association responded in writing<br />
to PHMSA.<br />
“A ban on such shipments would also disrupt distribution<br />
of many other products on which U.S. consumers,<br />
government agencies and businesses have come to rely,”<br />
the trade group said. Its position is that the batteries<br />
24 AMERICAN SHIPPER: OCTOBER 2009<br />
are safe to transport if properly packaged and handled.<br />
Government officials have said a shipment ban could<br />
lead unscrupulous companies to misidentify their cargo<br />
on shipping paperwork and labels.<br />
The battery industry urged PHMSA to move quickly to<br />
harmonize U.S. battery rules with much more stringent<br />
shipping and packaging provisions in place around the<br />
world. It also said PHMSA, which is responsible for<br />
hazmat rulemakings, and the FAA should more actively<br />
enforce existing U.S. regulations.<br />
The two agencies have not seen eye-to-eye in the past<br />
on lithium battery standards, contributing to bureaucratic<br />
inertia on new rules. PHMSA has been working on the<br />
rulemaking for at least two years.<br />
In each case above, the shipments failed to comply<br />
with existing hazardous materials regulations, including<br />
labeling and packaging requirements, the battery association<br />
maintained. “Similar flaunting of the regulations<br />
has been involved in virtually all the lithium ion battery<br />
shipping incidents over the last few years,” it wrote.<br />
The trade group rejected ALPA’s comparison of the<br />
three incidents with the UPS accident three years ago,<br />
noting that the NTSB stated the fire was initiated by an<br />
unknown source. That doesn’t mean batteries weren’t<br />
the most likely cause of the conflagration.<br />
As for PHMSA, it’s ridiculous that an agency can drag<br />
its feet so long on such an important safety issue. The<br />
DOT’s inspector general recently issued a scathing report<br />
documenting poor management practices throughout<br />
the agency and a lax attitude towards enforcement and<br />
working with other modal agencies in the department.<br />
Better rules and enforcement will make the industry<br />
safer and clear up uncertainty for shippers and carriers<br />
about shipping methods.<br />
Air Cargo Security Alliance reacts to coverage<br />
In my July column (page 36), I wrote about the Air<br />
Cargo Security Alliance’s attempt to get the Transportation<br />
Security Administration to conduct cargo<br />
inspections at airports in parallel with its initiative to<br />
push cargo screening on passenger planes to shippers.<br />
The group represents about 300 small forwarders and<br />
others who worry that the cost of self-screening will put<br />
them out of business.<br />
The point of my news analysis was to show that the<br />
logical outgrowth of their effort would be to derail the<br />
Certified Cargo Screening Program now being implemented<br />
to achieve 100 percent screening by 2010. It just<br />
seems a political reality that in these tough budgetary<br />
times the government isn’t going to run two separate<br />
screening programs.<br />
In a circular posted on its Web site and distributed by<br />
e-mail, the ACSA characterized my analysis as telling<br />
the air cargo industry to “drop dead,” and said that I was<br />
calling them a liar for having secondary motives. The<br />
tone of the document was much more negative than the<br />
letter to the editor from David E. Wirsing, principal of the<br />
ACSA, that we ran in the September issue (pages 2-4).<br />
The ACSA is off base in its memo. For one thing, the<br />
air cargo industry is broader than the ACSA, and many<br />
companies support the TSA program. Secondly, I never<br />
said the ACSA was lying in its public statements. I just<br />
analyzed the political situation to say that if the association<br />
was successful the end result would likely mean the<br />
CCSP would be replaced by government security checks<br />
and the ACSA wouldn’t be unhappy with that outcome.