August 2025 Vol. 80 No. 8
Features
Trump PHMSA aims to ease pipeline safety rules
STEPHEN BARLAS, Washington D.C. editor
The Trump administration has started down a path, which could be a slow one given the agency’s past performance, to ease the burden of safety rules on the gas pipeline industry. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), which had poked along on safety rule development during the Biden administration, issued a rash of separate regulatory notices – called “advance notices of proposed rulemaking” (ANPR) – starting in late May.
Those three early-stage regulatory actions ask for public input on whether PHMSA should: repeal or eliminate pipeline safety regulations, separately improve the cost-effectiveness of the current repair requirements, and amend existing pipeline safety regulations governing liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities.
“Increased U.S. energy production is creating heightened demands on pipeline infrastructure and export facilities, making the safety and reliability of our energy transportation network more critical than ever,” said PHMSA Acting Administrator Ben Kochman. “These rulemakings would reduce the burden on those who produce and transport American energy by allowing them to take advantage of advances in technology and engineering best practices and removing out-of-date regulatory requirements. These rules would contribute to lower costs for American consumers and help our allies abroad.”
Part of the problem for PHMSA’s petty pace during the Biden administration was lack of an administrator, the top political position at the agency. Kochman is the top Trump official, at the moment, and his authority to approve major regulatory reforms is in question. President Trump has nominated Paul Roberti to be the PHMSA administrator. He must be confirmed by the Senate, which so far has shown no interest in moving forward on that nomination. A press spokesman at the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, which is responsible for taking the first step on Roberti’s nomination, said, “Don’t have anything to share at this time but will keep you in the loop when we do notice his hearing.”
In addition to the absence of an PHMSA administrator, the rulemaking process will be unusually slow because the agency has lost staff due to the DOGE efforts to reduce the federal budget via headcount reductions at most agencies. At a May hearing in the Senate, Bill Caram, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust (PST), said, “We have heard from news sources about the high level of turnover at the senior leadership level, which, if true, represents an enormous drain of knowledge and experience from the agency. We haven’t heard anything about the losses from elsewhere within the agency.”
PST had asked PHMSA for an extension of time to comment on the two pipeline safety ANPRs. The agency rejected that request. “We remain hopeful that PHMSA will use this opportunity to modernize its safety framework and address long-standing gaps in oversight, though we have serious concerns with PHMSA’s deregulatory and cost-saving language,” said Erin Sutherland, policy and program director/counsel for the PST. “These ANPRMs should not be an excuse to weaken existing protections, but rather a chance to improve public safety, environmental protection and transparency.”
The May Senate hearing, where Caram made his comments, was held to consider changes to the Pipeline Safety Act, which Congress tried and failed to do in the last Congress. In this Congress, hearings were held in the House, in February, and in the Senate in mid-May. Industry trade groups are pushing PHMSA for numerous regulatory changes and also to complete some of the rulemakings mandated in the last Pipeline Safety Act bill which started under the Biden administration. These include pro-industry changes to the class location system, which the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA) has lobbied for, unsuccessfully, for at least a decade.
At those May 15 hearings in the Senate Commerce Committee, Robin Rorick, vice president of midstream policy at the American Petroleum Institute, mentioned at least one rulemaking PHMSA has apparently not undertaken but which the Congress authorized in 2020.
“A rulemaking is necessary to create a new operating status for pipelines that are ‘idled,’ in addition to the ‘active’ and ‘abandoned’ status currently recognized by the agency,” he explained. “PHMSA should specify which operations and maintenance activities an operator can defer to maintain safety while accounting for the lower risk posed by ‘idled’ pipelines, consistent with the agency’s 2016 Advisory Bulletin.”
Any changes to pipeline safety regulations made administratively, via rulemaking by the Trump administration, could be reversed by a Democratic president. That is not true for congressional changes set in law in the context of a Pipeline Safety Act reauthorization.
PHMSA can take years, sometimes decades, to turn an ANPR into a final rule, even if specified by Congress, as is the case with “idled” pipelines and class location reforms, the latter also mandated by the 2020 Pipeline Safety Act passed by Congress.
These three new ANPRs are motivated by the Trump administrations multifaceted efforts, described in executive orders and elsewhere, to supercharge U.S. energy production and delivery, in part by reducing unnecessary burdens. With regard to PHMSA broad ANPR pipeline safety regulations, the agency notes that it is seeking additional improvements to reduce regulatory burdens and costs. This is because federal courts have questioned the rigor of PHMSA’s cost-benefit analyses to support some provisions in recent pipeline safety regulations.
The agency wants the industry to submit extensive data to back up any safety changes it suggests. That would include “per-unit, aggregate and programmatic (both one-time implementing and recurring) data.” PHMSA also requests that stakeholders explain the bases or methodologies used in generating both cost and benefit data, including data sources and calculations.
The second ANPR on pipeline repair is narrower and will focus on pipeline anomalies including management integrity requirements for pipelines in high-consequence areas. Some repair requirements have not been updated for decades and may not account for the latest advances in pipeline safety technologies and industry best practices.
INGAA, in particular, has argued during hearings in Congress during the last few Pipeline Safety Act reauthorizations that current PHMSA rules either do not allow, or make it costly, to deploy innovative emerging technologies, such as advanced metering, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered leak detection and vehicle-mounted sensors.
The third ANPR also references new technologies that have become available for LNG facilities for which PHMSA has responsibility in terms of requirements for siting, design, installation, construction, inspection, testing, operation and maintenance. Those rules were last modernized in 2004, when most PHMSA-regulated LNG facilities were relatively small LNG import facilities and peak-shaving facilities. In addition, LNG facility technologies and operations have evolved and domestic interest in small-scale or mobile or temporary LNG facilities to support novel applications has increased.
The PIPES Act of 2020 requires PHMSA to update regulations to provide for a “risk-based regulatory approach” for “large-scale” LNG facilities. PHMSA never initiated such rulemaking. Current rules incorporate, by reference, much of NFPA 59A-2001. ANPR poses numerous questions about compliance issues and costs associated with this standard and the potential costs and benefits associated with incorporating some or all NFPA 59A-2023.
ANPRM also inquires whether the safety value of any of PHMSA’s interpretations of its regulations does not justify the associated compliance costs and whether any interpretations should be codified.
Comments