April 2025 Vol. 80 No. 4
Washington Watch
Congress renews efforts to improve pipeline safety law
The Trump administration appears to be more interested in energizing the federal pipeline safety regulator than the Biden administration ever was. President Trump in late February nominated Paul Roberti to be the administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). President Biden left that position open during his four years in office, resulting in an agency that was noticeably dysfunctional in terms of accomplishing regulatory actions dictated in pipeline safety bills previously passed by Congress.
For that matter, Congress was not much more active on the issue, as it failed to pass legislation in 2024 that was approved by two House committees and to reauthorize the Pipeline Safety Act. That law still stands but reauthorization would have given Congress a chance to make changes wanted by the interstate pipeline industry.
Stasis at the PHMSA was underlined by Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Transportation Committee’s Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials. In a hearing on Feb. 25, he asked witnesses, which included a representative for the Interstate Natural Gas Association of American (INGAA), whether the absence of a PHMSA administrator between 2020 and 2024 hamstrung the agency. “Things just didn’t get done,” stated Webster.
If confirmed by the Senate, a near-done deal, Roberti will be able to get off to a quick start. He served as chief counsel at PHMSA during Trump’s first administration. He currently serves as chief economic and policy advisor at the Rhode Island Division of Public Utilities and Carriers.
PHMSA has a number of regulatory actions of importance to the interstate pipeline industry, which proceeded at a snail’s pace during the Biden administration. A key one dealt with improving the class location safety rule that has been unchanged for 50 years. It dictates that pipelines must retest pipelines in areas that experience an upsurge in population.
PHMSA canceled a second, unrelated proposal in the last few months of the Biden administration, increasing standards dealing with pipeline leak detection. That was good news for the gas transportation industry, which had lobbied against the final rule that was about to be published.
A second piece of good news, thanks to a federal court slapping PHMSA’s wrists, was the publication of a final rule on Jan. 16, 2025, by the Biden administration, eliminating some provisions of a 2022 Gas Transmission Final Rule. That was the result of a court challenge from INGAA that led on Aug. 16, 2024, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ordering some provisions vacated.
Those included: monitoring and mitigation of internal corrosive constituents; immediate repair criterion for cracks or crack-like anomalies with predicted failure pressures below 1.25 times maximum allowable operating pressure; and high-frequency electric- resistance welded seams as one of the seam types qualifying for the immediate repair criterion of preferential metal loss on certain seam types.
But for INGAA, PHMSA final approval of the long-delayed class location proposal is the golden goose. Eric Taylor, P.E., director of engineering services, Berkshire Hathaway Energy Eastern Gas Transmission and Storage, who represented INGAA at the February subcommittee hearings, said, “INGAA’s top regulatory priority with PHMSA is completion of the class location rule, which presents opportunities to improve safety, protect the environment, and possibly increase capacity of existing infrastructure that has been down-rated due to a class change.”
PHMSA published a proposed rule on class location in October 2020. That is as far as it got. The 2020 Protecting Our Infrastructure of Pipelines and Enhancing Safety (PIPES) Act required the agency to convene a meeting of the Gas Pipeline Advisory Committee (GPAC) to provide policy recommendations and review the proposed rule by the end of 2021. The GPAC met in March 2024.
According to INGAA, when a class location change occurs, the current regulations may require operators to replace the existing pipe, even when an engineering assessment, including modern inspection tools, has shown it to be in safe, operational condition.
“At the GPAC meeting, interstate natural gas pipeline industry members recommended an improved method of using a risk-based application to determine class,” continued Taylor. “This new method expanded the scope of the final rule beyond that of the proposed rule to address broader class location concerns and ensure risk is properly identified on pipeline systems.
“As a result of this proposal, the committee overwhelmingly voted to hold a second advisory committee meeting in March 2025.” However, PHMSA has made no public announcement about such a meeting, which would be required before it can take place.
The House Transportation Committee did pass a bipartisan bill in 2023 reauthorizing PHMSA for four years. That was H.R. 6494, the Promoting Innovation in Pipeline Efficiency and Safety (PIPES) Act of 2023. The House Energy Committee, which also has jurisdiction over PHMSA, passed a slightly different bill. Those two bills were never combined, as they had to be, before going to the full House. The House Transportation bill required PHMSA to issue a final rule based on the proposed 2020 class location rule within 90 days after passage of the bill.
It is likely that provision would be included in any PHMSA reauthorization Congress passes in 2025-26. Whether PHMSA would actually meet that deadline is a separate story.
Democrats in Congress will probably push for additional safety measures to be added to the House Transportation bill passed in December 2023. The top Democrat on the full committee, Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Wash.), pointed out at the hearings that 2024 had been a bad year for pipeline accidents (not all interstate gas) and that the National Transportation Safety Board has nine open pipeline investigations.
Bill Caram, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust, picked up that point. “We continue to languish with consistent poor performance, with a significant incident almost every day and 30 people killed over the last two years,” he said.
In December, the National Transportation Safety Board held a Board meeting to discuss the 2023 UGI Utilities pipeline failure in West Reading, Penn., which resulted in an explosion that killed seven people and injured 111.
Caram suggested some changes to the 2023 bill that, in his mind, would be pro-safety. “Mitigating pipeline failures due to geohazards would be better served by mandating a rulemaking than a study,” he stated. “We have industry guidance and several studies that should be more than enough to inform a PHMSA rulemaking effort to close this gaping regulatory gap.”
He endorsed establishing a regulation on Pipeline Safety Management Systems.
Congress cancels methane fee on pipelines
Congress passed a Congressional Review Act resolution canceling the Biden administration rule requiring pipelines to pay a fee starting in March based on their methane emissions. President Trump is expected to sign the bill. Sponsored by Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.Dak.) and Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas), both resolutions passed both chambers by narrow partisan majorities, with Republicans in favor and Democrats opposed.
The methane fee was mandated by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and directed the EPA to set a charge on methane emissions for facilities that emit more than 25,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide equivalent. The fee started at $900 per metric ton of methane emitted in 2024, and increased to $1,200 in 2025, and $1,500 for 2026 and beyond.
Comments