A new grant program administered by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) has begun fulfilling its mission of providing funding to help communities improve their response to hazardous materials transportation incidents. 

Authorized by the FAST Act, the Community Safety Grant program provides funding to nonprofit organizations to conduct national outreach and training programs to assist communities to enforce hazardous materials regulations, and prepare and respond to accidents and incidents involving the transportation of hazardous materials, including Class 3 flammable liquids. 

The first two recipients – of million-dollar-grants – are:

• The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA), a nonprofit association comprised of local, state, provincial, territorial and federal commercial motor vehicle safety officials and industry representatives; and
• The Sustainable Workplace Alliance (SWA) a not-for-profit that aims to provide environmental, health and safety training to America’s workforce.

“These new grants will help to provide the resources necessary to train the state and local personnel responsible for enforcing hazardous materials safety requirements across the country,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx.

PHMSA conducted a review of the training needs of the nation’s state and local personnel responsible for dealing with hazardous materials transportation related events and identified a gap in training for personnel responsible for enforcement. The grants announced today focus specifically on the training of state and local personnel responsible for enforcing the transportation of hazardous materials, giving priority to nonprofit organizations that have the existing capacity to reach and train a huge quantity of these personnel throughout the country.

PHMSA’s grant programs continue to provide states and communities the resources necessary to identify and fulfill hazardous materials training needs for personnel responsible for dealing with hazardous materials transportation activities. For more information about PHMSA’s grants for hazardous materials safety, visit the agency’s website at:  http://www.phmsa.dot.gov/hazmat/grants-program.