Lithium Battery Safety Rules Would Hurt Supply Chain, CEA, 33 Others Tell DOT

In January, the DOT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) proposed rules that include lifting exemptions in the agency’s hazardous materials rules for air shipments of small lithium-ion and lithium-metal cells and the equipment packed with them. If the changes are adopted, manufacturers and distributors would need to declare and label those products as Class 9 hazardous materials when shipping them on cargo or passenger planes and package them in United Nations-standard containers certified for holding substances classed as medium-level threats.

Industry estimates of the cost to CE makers and distributors, mainly from added shipping expenses for products that move largely by air freight, range from the tens of millions of dollars a year to more than $1 billion. Retailers also say they fear that under the proposed rules, any store employee who opens a box containing lithium batteries or takes a service return would need to have had hazardous-materials training. The PHMSA estimates that the rules would cost industry $9 million the first year and a little more than $70 million over the first decade. But Black & Decker, in comments to the PHMSA opposing the rules, said it has 274 SKUs containing lithium batteries. Changing their packaging to conform to the rules would cost the company $2.5 million a year, plus $535,000 in new tooling and documentation, it said.

The proposed rules will “enhance safety by ensuring that all lithium batteries are designed to withstand normal transportation conditions, packaged to reduce the possibility of damage that could lead to an incident, and accompanied by hazard communication information that ensures appropriate and careful handling by air carrier personnel and informs transport workers and emergency response personnel of actions to be taken in an emergency,” the PHMSA said in its January rulemaking notice. Since 1991, PHMSA and the Federal Aviation Administration “have identified over 40 air transport-related incidents and numerous additional non-transport incidents involving lithium batteries and devices powered by lithium batteries."

But industry critics of the new rules say that none of the episodes involved a laptop or cell phone that was commercially packed for shipping. “If the PHMSA rule is finalized as written, the production and transportation of lithium batteries will be seriously hampered,” said the letter to DOT, signed by CEA, the CE Retailers Coalition and the ITI Council, and 31 others, including FedEx, UPS, the Air Transport Association and the International Air Cargo Association. It would harm the nation’s supply chain and “an economy already struggling to exit the most serious recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s,” the letter said. “Most of the signatories to this letter will be filing comments detailing individual impacts of the proposed rule, but the group collectively feels that it is extremely important to recognize the potentially devastating effect on the economy generally if the current proposal is adopted."

Those signing the letter said they recognize that the federal government needs to take up the risks of lithium batteries on airplanes. The problem should be dealt with as promptly “as possible consistent with scientific facts and with care not to destroy a major element of economic growth,” the letter said. “A major problem with the instant rulemaking is that it does not allow for adequate consideration and full understanding of the potential impact this proposal will have on the economy and variously affected industries."

Comments in the rulemaking are due March 12. The PHSMA has denied several requests for a deadline extension, including from CEA, the National Electrical Manufacturers Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, because it wants to promptly take up the risks of shipping lithium batteries by air, the agency said. The letter suggests converting the rulemaking to an “advance” proceeding in which the PHSMA would seek “factual input from the industry before proposing final rules,” it said. “In order to obtain this input, consideration should also be given to the formation of an Advisory Committee of industry experts to provide advice to PHMSA. This Committee could be chartered with a relatively short life span so as not to delay any final rule. In short, PHMSA should not rush to judgment without an adequate factual base.” A public meeting on the proposed rules is scheduled for 1 p.m. Friday at DOT’s Washington headquarters.