49 CFR Hazmat Penalties

Not in compliance? Your bottom line just took a harder hit.

As they do every year, the US Department of Transportation increased civil penalties for compliance violations, effective January 11, 2021. These violations, and their respective fines, are found in 49 CFR Part 107, Appendix A.

The new civil penalties for 2021 are:

The maximum civil penalty for a hazardous material shipping violation is $83,439 per violation per day.
Violations that result in serious illness, substantial property damage, or death are now $194,691 per violation per day.
Finally, the minimum penalty for failure to provide hazmat training to a hazmat employee is $502 per employee per day.

Remember, providing training is not enough. You can get penalized for not documenting training as well. Training records must be kept for all areas of training outlined in 172.704.

Also, most training programs cover the general awareness and security awareness categories. Safety and Forklift training (if needed) would be covered in companies OSHA Safety training. What often goes unnoticed is the function-specific training.

Function-specific training must be done on-site. It doesn’t need to be fancy. It can be as simple as a supervisor watching an employee pack a box or put a package through the hazmat software. The supervisor verifies that the employee did everything correctly. Once that is complete, both parties sign off as the training record, and a document is issued showing the who, what, where, why, and how.

Need help with training or writing procedures for employees to follow? Contact our Regulatory Experts. We are happy to help.

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