Joint industry comments from API, INGAA, AGA and APGA have been submitted to the docket for the pending notice of proposed rulemaking “Safety of Gas Transmission Pipelines: Repair Criteria, Integrity Management Improvements, Cathodic Protection, Management of Change, and Other Related Amendments”. This NPRM is one of three rules that were split out of the original NPRM, commonly known as the Gas Mega-Rule. To read the these comments as well as other comments, go here. The final Gas Piping Advisory Committee meeting is scheduled to discuss the NPRM “Safety of Gas Gathering Pipelines” on September 6th and 7th in Arlington, Virginia.

GAO-18-461: Published: May 29, 2018. Publicly Released: May 29, 2018

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has recently looked into federal and state responsibilities for interstate pipeline inspections. While PHMSA expanded its inspector workforce by 25% between 2012 and 2017, the agency hasn’t planned for future workforce needs—for example, it hasn’t assessed how states can help with pipeline inspections and safety oversight. GAO has recommended that PHMSA should develop a workforce plan for interstate pipeline inspections that is consistent with leading practices in workforce planning, which should include a consideration of the additional resources and safety oversight that state pipeline officials can provide. DOT concurred with GAO’s recommendation and provided technical comments, which were incorporated as appropriate. The complete report can be found on the GAO’s website.

The next GPAC meeting is scheduled for Thursday, September 6, 2018 from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and on Friday, September 7 from 8:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. The GPAC meeting will discuss the NPRM, Pipeline Safety: Safety of Gas Gathering Lines. (See related article in the April 2018 edition of the DOT Pipeline Compliance News: GPAC Summary – Safety of Gas Transmission and Gathering NPRM.) The meeting location, agenda and any additional information will be published on the PHMSA Meeting Registration webpage.

The Office of Inspector General within the Department of Energy has published a report from its recent audit of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Natural Gas Certification Process (a.k.a. a FERC Certificate). Excerpts from that report include:

• While nothing came to our attention to indicate that natural gas certification applications had been inappropriately approved or disapproved, FERC can take steps to improve aspects of the natural gas certification process
• . . . we identified four areas for improvement that, if addressed, could aid FERC in more efficiently and effectively managing its natural gas certification process:
  • Process Transparency
  • Public Access to FERC Records
  • Tracking Stakeholder Comments
  • Data Integrity
• The process transparency and public access issues that we identified above occurred, in part, because FERC had not specifically designed its public-facing systems for use by the general public.
• Management concurred with the report’s recommendations and indicated that it had either initiated or planned corrective actions to address the issues identified in the report.

The full report can be found here.

The State of Mississippi has recently revised Title 77 – Public Utilities and Carriers; Chapter 13 – Regulation of Excavations Near Underground Utility Facilities. In addition to various changes to the existing rules on excavation damage prevention, the rule creates a new Design Information Request, requiring response within 7 days by utility owners to a person providing professional services and making a request in preparation for bidding, preconstruction engineering, or other advance planning efforts that do not involve excavation. There is also a new section that includes the creation of a new Underground Facilities Damage Prevention Board charged with enforcement and the creation of an Underground Damage Prevention Fund which will be used by the Board.