To further the Administration’s deregulatory policies, PHMSA has published in today’s Federal Register twenty-eight (28) separate rulemaking actions affecting the pipeline safety regulations (PSR; Parts 190-199). Click here to access the documents.
These actions are summarized below:
- Pipeline Safety: Rationalize Special Permit Conditions
Notice of proposed Rulemaking (NPRM)
49 CFR Part 190
PHMSA proposes to amend its procedures governing special permits authorizing waiver of its pipeline safety regulations to ensure that special permit conditions must be connected directly to the provisions of the pipeline safety regulations being waived.
- Pipeline Safety: Rationalize Calculation of Regulatory Filing and Compliance Deadlines
Direct Final Rule (DFR)
49 CFR Part 190
PHMSA will amend its pipeline safety regulations to introduce a clarification that filing and compliance deadlines falling on weekends and Federal holidays will be adjusted automatically to the following business day.
- Pipeline Safety: Adjust Annual Report Filing Timelines
DFR
49 CFR Parts 191
PHMSA will amend its annual reporting to change the deadline for submission of annual reports from March to June for gas pipelines.
- Pipeline Safety: Property Damage Definition for Incident Reporting on Gas Pipelines and Accidents on Hazardous Liquid Pipelines
DFR
49 CFR Part 191 and Part 195
PHMSA will finalize a previous proposal to clarify, for the purposes of defining an incident on a gas pipeline, the approach specified in regulations for calculating property damage to exclude the costs associated with removing and replacing pavement and certain other inconsequential costs. PHMSA will also update the monetary damages threshold for accident reporting on hazardous liquid pipelines to align with an inflation-adjusted formula specified in its regulations governing gas pipeline incident reporting.
- Pipeline Safety: Exception for In-Plant Piping Systems
NPRM 49 CFR Part 192
PHMSA proposes to amend its regulations to clarify that PHMSA clarify that in-plant piping systems are not regulated.
- Pipeline Safety: Codify Enforcement Discretion on Incidental Gathering Lines
NPRM
49 CFR Part 192
PHMSA proposes to codify a statement of limited enforcement discretion clarifying that a restriction introduced in the previous administration on gas gathering line operators’ ability to invoke the historical “incidental gathering line” applies only to newly constructed lines.
- Pipeline Safety: Eliminating Burdensome and Duplicative Deadlines for Gas Pipeline Coating Damage Assessments and Remedial Actions
NPRM
49 CFR Part 192
PHMSA proposes to eliminate unnecessarily prescriptive and burdensome deadlines on gas transmission and certain gas gathering lines for completing each of coating damage assessments following trench backfilling of newly installed pipe and remedial actions following failed coating assessments. The proposal would replace those existing requirements with a general requirement to complete, prior to the in-service date of the pipeline, any coating damage assessments for newly installed pipe, as well as remedial actions undertaken in response to a failed coating damage assessment.
For expert clarification on this rule, click here to view our Q&A article.
- Pipeline Safety: Atmospheric Corrosion Reassessment for Pipeline Replacements
NPRM
49 CFR Part 192
PHMSA proposes to eliminate an existing requirement for a 3-year atmospheric corrosion reassessment interval for gas transmission and certain gas gathering lines following replacement of pipeline segments or components undertaken in response to a previous identification of atmospheric corrosion. Pipeline operators replacing pipe would instead be able to employ on that replacement pipeline segment or segments the default 5-year reassessment interval provided for elsewhere in PHMSA regulations.
- Pipeline Safety: Harmonize Class Change Pressure Test Requirements with Subpart J Pressure Test Requirements
NPRM
49 CFR Part 192
PHMSA will align the minimum pressure testing duration (currently 8 hours) for verification of maximum allowable operating pressure (MAOP) following a change in class location on certain short segments of pipe to align with longstanding pressure test duration requirements (4 hours) elsewhere in PHMSA regulations at Part 192, Subpart J.
- Pipeline Safety: Clarifying Recordkeeping Requirements for Testing in MAOP Reconfirmation Regulation
Final Rule – Technical Correction
49 CFR Part 192
PHMSA will issue a technical correction to 192.624(a)(1) to clarify the ability of gas transmission operators to rely on pressure testing data pre-dating the introduction of the Pipeline Safety Regulations in the early 1970s when re-confirming MAOP on their lines.
- Pipeline Safety: Integration of Innovative Remote Sensing Technologies for Right-of-Way Patrols on Gas and Hazardous Liquid Pipelines
DFR
49 CFR Parts 192 and 195
PHMSA will amend its regulations governing performance of right-of-way patrols on gas and hazardous liquid pipelines to state explicitly that such patrols may be completed with unmanned aircraft systems, satellites, and other suitable technologies.
- Pipeline Safety: Periodic Updates of Regulatory References to Technical Standards and Miscellaneous Amendments; Additional Technical Amendments; Response to Petition for Reconsideration
Final Rule – Technical Correction
49 CFR Part 192
PHMSA will, in response to a petition for reconsideration from industry stakeholders, amend its regulations governing gas pipelines to incorporate by reference an updated version of a consensus industry standard omitted from the final rule in that proceeding due to then-pending litigation on another PHMSA rulemaking.
- Pipeline Safety Program: Update of Standards Incorporated by Reference
Multiple DFRs
49 CFR Parts 192 and 195
PHMSA issued 16 additional DFRs that each adopt an updated edition of an industry consensus standard replacing an obsolete edition that is incorporated currently by reference in 49 CFR Parts 192 and 195.
The following standards are addressed in this effort:
– API 6D
– API 1170 and 1171 UNGS
– API 620
– API 2026
– ASTM A53/A53M etc. (gas and liquid)
– ASTM A381 (gas and liquid)
– ASTM F2145
– ASTM F2600
– ASTM F2767
– ASTM A578/A578M
– ASTM F2817
– ASTM F2945
– ASTM F1973
– NFPA 70
– PPI TR-3
– PPI TR-4