Every blasting contractor has had the same argument with an inspector: the shot is loaded, the crew is on the bench, and the remaining cases are sitting on the truck rather than back in the magazine two miles away. ATF is proposing to write that situation into the rules.
On Sept. 25 the agency published two companion proposed rules amending 27 CFR Part 555. Comments on both close Nov. 24.
What the storage rule would change
The first, RIN 1140-AA86, adds exceptions to the general requirement that explosive materials be kept in locked magazines. Three categories would be carved out: material in a testing or manufacturing process, material designated for imminent use, and material awaiting imminent transport. It would also drop the requirement for Type 3 magazines, the portable outdoor day boxes, and add a perforating-gun exception that incorporates ATF Ruling 2010-7, allowing up to 2,500 pounds stored outdoors where specified security measures are in place.
ATF states that the rule covers construction, mining, quarry and blasting sites. Reported CFR sections touched are 555.203, 555.205 and 555.209, though that should be checked against the published text before anyone builds a compliance procedure on it.
The second rule, RIN 1140-AA67, is housekeeping with a title that suggests otherwise. “Explosives Magazine Safety Requirements” consolidates 555.212 through 555.215 into a revised 555.212 and removes 555.214 and 555.215. ATF expects no cost from it, but reports a paperwork burden increase of 1,516 hours, from 114,610 to 116,126.
The savings estimate is small
ATF puts the annual saving at about $490,000, or roughly $3.44 million over 10 years at a 7% discount rate, spread across about 9,100 licensees and permittees with around 980 new entrants each year. That works out to roughly $54 per licensee per year, which is not the kind of number that drives a rulemaking.
The real value to a contractor isn’t the dollar figure, it’s the elimination of a category of violation that exists mostly on paper. “Imminent use” describes what actually happens on a live shot, and a rule that doesn’t acknowledge it produces either fiction in the log or a cited crew. Every one of those numbers is an ATF estimate from the regulatory analysis, not an independent finding.
The definitions are where this gets decided
Nothing in either proposal reduces the security standard for stored material. What changes is the boundary of when storage rules apply at all, and that boundary is set by two undefined-in-practice words: imminent use, and imminent transport. An hour? A shift? Until the shot fires?
Contractors with a view on where that line should sit have until Nov. 24 to say so, and this is the stage at which saying so is worth anything. A related final rule published the same day, implementing the Safe Explosives Act, takes effect Oct. 26. It covers when licensees must report changes in responsible persons and authorized employees, and it drops the identity check for persons accepting deliveries.
Controlled blasting under occupied buildings is not a rare scope. Tennessee is running it right now under its state capitol campus as part of the Motlow Tunnel work at Legislative Plaza.