Under previous administrations, each Executive Agency was required to submit a monthly Significant Rulemaking Report that detailed the status of all significant rulemakings currently being drafted. When the current administration issued Executive Orders on Regulatory Reform, these reports became few and far between. Since January 2017, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) has only issued five such reports. The latest one issued recently was on March 27, 2018.Under previous administrations, each Executive Agency was required to submit a monthly Significant Rulemaking Report that detailed the status of all significant rulemakings currently being drafted. When the current administration issued Executive Orders on Regulatory Reform, these reports became few and far between. Since January 2017, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) has only issued five such reports. The latest one issued recently was on March 27, 2018.
APGA reviews each of these reports to gain a sense of PHMSA’s goal timelines for rulemakings. Unfortunately, the projected milestone dates in these reports can only be viewed as goals and not much more. PHMSA’s staff provides these goal timelines, but the dates are impacted by many internal and external forces. Each significant rulemaking is thoroughly reviewed by PHMSA leadership, PHMSA’s legal staff, the leadership and legal staff at the Department of Transportation (DOT), and the Office of Management and Budget. Should any of those steps take longer than anticipated or should the rulemaking get kicked-back to a previous step for further review and amendments, the timeline is greatly altered.
With all this taken into consideration, PHMSA’s March Significant Rulemaking Report tells us two things:
1. The Safety of Gas Transmission & Gathering Lines Rulemaking has been broken into three parts, the first of which is not anticipated to be published until Spring 2019; and,
2. PHMSA is hoping to publish the Plastic Pipe Rulemaking this summer.
Learn more here
https://www.transportation.gov/regulations/report-on-significant-rulemakings
For questions on this article, please contact Erin Kurilla of APGA staff by phone at 202-905-2904 or by email at
ekurilla@apga.org.