Bill to reauthorize, enhance pipeline safety programs introduced in the House

A bill that would reauthorize the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s (PHMSA) pipeline safety programs for the next four years was introduced in the House last week.

The bill, the Promoting Innovation in Pipeline Efficiency and Safety (PIPES) Act of 2023 (H.R. 6494), was introduced by Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO), Rick Larsen (D-WA), Troy Nehls (R-TX), and Donald Payne (D-NJ).

“Pipelines are the safest, most environmentally friendly, and most economically efficient means of delivering oil, gas, hazardous liquids, and increasing volumes of future fuels to market,” Graves, chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said. “This bill achieves the right balance between ensuring the safe transportation of energy produced from conventional, unconventional, and alternative sources while also ensuring the United States remains a competitive global leader in the production of newer energy resources, such as hydrogen, and in environmental protection.”

In summary, the bill seeks to re-emphasize and improve PHMSA’s safety mission. Specifically, it directs PHMSA to move forward rulemakings allowed by Congress in previous laws to improve pipeline operations, strengthens criminal penalties for pipeline damage or disruption, increases civil penalties on operators that violate safety rules, authorizes the hiring of additional pipeline safety experts to address workforce shortages, expands leading practices for preventing excavation damage, and directs the National Academies to study PHMSA’s integrity management regulations and their impact on safety.

It also supports the safe operations of both traditional and innovative, emerging energy sources and the technology to support them. Provisions in the bill authorize a study of current hydrogen blending projects, require PHMSA to complete a rulemaking on standards for the transportation and temporary storage of carbon dioxide, direct a study of composite pipeline material for potential hydrogen service, and create a federal working group to clarify regulation and oversight of liquefied natural gas facilities, among others.

“This bipartisan pipeline safety bill will strengthen the safety of the millions of miles of existing gas and hazardous liquid pipelines as well as new carbon dioxide and hydrogen pipelines that will be needed thanks to energy investments made by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act. Since the tragic Olympic pipeline explosion in Bellingham in 1999 that killed three boys, I have worked to ensure hazardous products carried by pipelines stay in the pipelines,” Larsen, ranking member on the Transportation Committee, said.

Further, the PIPES Act seeks to improve clarity, transparency, and accountability at PHMSA. Specifically, it requires PHMSA to maintain a list of industry standards considered for adoption and the agency’s adjudication of those standards, creates a system to encourage voluntary information sharing from stakeholders, improves PHMSA’s public outreach and engagement efforts, makes publicly available a report of PHMSA’s inspection and enforcement priorities through fiscal year 2027, encourages the issuance of guidance to improve pipeline safety information sharing with the public, and increases the available funding for small and mid-sized educational institutions to participate in PHMSA’s competitive academic agreement program efforts.