On June 6-7, the Technical Pipeline Safety Standards Committee (TPSSC) met in Arlington, Va., to continue its review of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s (PHMSA) proposed changes to transmission regulations. The TPSSC is a congressionally-mandated peer review committee composed of industry, government and public pipeline safety experts that advises whether PHMSA’s rules are reasonable, practicable, technically feasible and cost-effective. Rich Worsinger of Rocky Mount, N.C., represents public natural gas on this committee.
The proposed rule covers 136 Federal Register pages and proposed many complex and interrelated changes. Even though the rule was listed as a transmission rule, some of the proposed changes would affect distribution operators. For example, PHMSA proposed to amend Appendix D that deals with criteria for cathodic protection, to require an “instant off” measurement of pipe to soil potential, requiring the cathodic protection system to be turned off just before the reading is taken. This could require significant costs for distribution systems that typically use galvanic anodes physically connected to the pipe for cathodic protection. APGA’s comments pointed out that such costs would provide little benefit as only three out of 592 distribution reportable incidents since 2010 occurred on pipe under cathodic protection, and none of those three incidents caused any injury or property loss to the public; the only cost was to the operator to repair the pipe. PHMSA also proposed a change APGA supports to define “distribution center” as beginning at the point gas is metered and/or pressure reduced at the gate station. This change would reclassify many lines operated by APGA members as distribution.
Even before the committee began discussing the rule, PHMSA announced that it was withdrawing the proposed changes to Appendix D cathodic protection criteria. The committee recommended major changes to corrosion control proposals as well as recordkeeping that will reduce the burden of the rule. While the distribution center definition was tabled until the next meeting APGA privately reiterated to PHMSA staff our support for their proposed definition The TPSSC’s views carry great weight, however PHMSA is not legally bound to accept every committee recommendation.
The TPSSC will meet once or twice more in the coming months to complete review of the remainder of PHMSA’s proposed changes. For questions on this article, please contact John Erickson of APGA staff by phone at 202-464-2742 or by email at
jerickson@apga.org.