Today gases touch virtually every manufacturing process for nearly any product you can think of. For example, at the very least, practically every manufacturing company needs cutting and welding gases to perform simple maintenance and repair tasks. The actual production equipment companies used by companies to make products required gases to build and assemble them. In a broad variety of industries — from steel making, to shipbuilding, to food, chemical, and pharmaceutical processing, and on to high tech industries like electronics and fiber optic manufacturing — gases are integral to the manufacturing processes. Finally, gases are essential to sustaining life under the sea, on the hospital operating table, and in outer space. With such a myriad of uses it should come as no surprise that the gases industry is also one of the most highly regulated industry segments in America. As the uses for gases expanded in the last half century, so too have the regulatory requirements for manufacturing, storing, and shipping those products. This article will recap some of the notable regulatory challenges the industry has faced over the last three decades and how that has affected our industry.
Department of Transportation
As far back as the early 1900s, when industrial and medical gases began to enter commercial distribution, the US Department of Transportation (DOT) has been involved in regulating both the equipment used to store and transport gases and the requirements to offer those products for shipment over the road. DOT gradually and continually evolved its requirements as the gas industry grew and changed. For example, as the industry began to transition from a high pressure cylinder supply chain model to one in which the delivery of cryogenic liquids became more common, the DOT instituted requirements to accommodate and facilitate that change. Today’s DOT regulations are ever evolving to harmonize with hazardous material regulations globally.
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