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Senate Approves PHMSA Administrator

By Dave Schryver posted 10-12-2017 11:48 AM

  
On October 5, the Senate unanimously approved the President’s nomination of Skip Elliot to serve as Administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). PHMSA is charged with administering federal regulation of natural gas, oil, and other hazardous materials transportation by pipeline and the regulation of multimodal (truck, rail, etc.) transportation of hazardous materials. APGA closely interacts with PHMSA given their role in developing natural gas pipeline regulations.

Mr. Elliot’s background is in the railroad industry and he previously served as the vice president of public safety, health, environment and security at CSX Transportation. During his confirmation hearing before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, Mr. Elliot discussed the status of implementation of 42 pipeline regulations that came out of the Protecting our Infrastructure of Pipelines Enhancing Safety (PIPES) Act of 2011. To date 30 of those regulations have been implemented. Mr. Elliot communicated his commitment to move forward on those regulations with a focus on those that have the greatest impact on safety. He also communicated a commitment to ensure that PHMSA has the staff resources needed to complete action on these regulations and that there would be transparency in the rulemaking process.

For questions on this article, please contact Dave Schryver of APGA staff by phone at 202-464-2742 or by email at dschryver@apga.org.

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