This week, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials convened a hearing titled “Pipeline Safety: Reviewing the Status of Mandates and Examining Additional Safety Needs.” This hearing is meant to kick off the committee’s work on the 2019 PIPES Act to reauthorize the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA).
The hearing consisted of three panels. The first was a member panel of Representatives Trahan and Moulton, both representing Massachusetts districts impacted by the NiSource/Columbia Gas incident in Merrimack Valley. The second panel consisted of PHMSA Administrator Skip Elliot and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) member Jennifer Homendy. The final panel included representatives from AOPL, American Petroleum Institute, Environmental Defense Fund, Pipeline Safety Trust, the International Association of Fire Chiefs, and Accufacts.
The discussion mainly centered around PHMSA’s progress in finalizing several outstanding congressional mandates from the 2011 and 2016 PIPES Acts. PHMSA has lagged in issuing rules and regulations required from these laws, and Congress has grown increasingly frustrated with the lack of significant progress. Many members cited PHMSA’s statutory cost-benefit requirement as a major regulatory roadblock and attempted to paint that requirement as the sole impediment to PHMSA completing regulations on time.
The September 2018 tragedy in Massachusetts also drove much of the discussion. The member panel highlighted the need for action in this year’s PHMSA reauthorization, and the NTSB gave some insight into their recommendations following the incident. Some Representatives attempted to link PHMSA’s inaction on congressional mandates with the tragedy, while others pushed for more stringent rules regarding pipeline replacement and inspection.
APGA submitted comments for the hearing. In the comments, APGA communicated that new mandates should be evaluated in concert with existing requirements that are already in place and that while some new requirements may appear to be beneficial on their own, they may prove to be redundant or their benefits are minimal when considered with existing rules and regulations
Following this hearing, the Senate Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Transportation and Safety will hold a hearing next week with PHMSA and others. PHMSA reauthorization must occur by the end of the current fiscal year or else funding will lapse for the agency.
For questions on this article, please contact Doug MacGillivray of APGA staff by phone at 202-464-2742 or by email at
dmacgillivray@apga.org.