Pipeline Safety: Requirement of Valve Installation and Minimum Rupture Detection Standards: Response to Petition for Reconsideration; Additional Technical Corrections

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Part 192</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. PHMSA-2013-0255; Amdt. No. 192-136]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2137-AF06</RIN> <SUBJECT>Pipeline Safety: Requirement of Valve Installation and Minimum Rupture Detection Standards: Response to Petition for Reconsideration; Additional Technical Corrections</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Correction amendments; response to petition for reconsideration. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In response to a Petition for Reconsideration of an August 1, 2023, technical correction rule, PHMSA is issuing additional corrections codifying a decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (D.C. Circuit) regarding the final rule titled “Pipeline Safety: Requirement of Valve Installation and Minimum Rupture Detection Standards.” </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> These amendments are effective as of June 28, 2024. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Robert Jagger, Senior Transportation Specialist, by email at <E T="03">robert.jagger@dot.gov,</E> or by telephone at 202-366-4361. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> On April 8, 2022, PHMSA published a final rule titled “Pipeline Safety: Requirement of Valve Installation and Minimum Rupture Detection Standards”  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> (Valve Rule) amending the Federal pipeline safety regulations (49 CFR parts 190 through 199) to, among other provisions, require the installation of rupture-mitigation valves (RMV) or alternative equivalent technologies and establish minimum performance standards for the operation of those valves to mitigate the public safety and environmental consequences of ruptures on gas and hazardous liquid (including carbon dioxide) pipelines. On May 16, 2023, the D.C. Circuit vacated the Valve Rule's regulatory amendments as they applied to gathering pipelines (gathering lines). <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  87 FR 20940 (Apr. 8, 2022). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>   <E T="03">See GPA Midstream Ass'n</E> v. <E T="03">U.S. Dep't of Transp.,</E> 67 F.4th 1188 (D.C. Cir. 2023). The court left in place those regulations as applied to gas and hazardous liquid transmission pipelines. </FTNT> Subsequently, on August 1, 2023, PHMSA issued “Pipeline Safety: Requirement of Valve Installation and Minimum Rupture Detection Standards: Technical Corrections,” 88 FR 50056 (Aug. 1, 2023) (Correction Rule), which updated provisions of the pipeline safety regulations, as amended by the Valve Rule, to codify the D.C. Circuit's decision. On August 30, 2023, the American Petroleum Institute (API) and GPA Midstream Association (GPA) jointly filed a Petition for Reconsideration (Petition) of the Correction Rule. The Petition requested two regulatory amendments pertaining to the D.C. Circuit's May 2023 decision. First, API and GPA noted that, although § 192.9(c) provides an exception for Type A gathering lines from the requirements at § 192.617(b) through (d), corresponding references to Type A gathering lines remained within § 192.617(c) and (d). API and GPA requested PHMSA remove those references within § 192.617(c) and (d) to better conform to the D.C. Circuit decision. Second, API and GPA also noted that, although PHMSA amended the definition of “notification of potential rupture” at §§ 192.3 and 195.2 to exclude gathering lines, that exclusion was not made explicit within a companion provision in operating requirements at § 192.635(a). API and GPA requested PHMSA add a disclaimer to § 192.635 to align with the changes made to the definition for “notification of potential rupture” to conform with the D.C. Circuit order specifying that § 192.635(a) is not applicable to gas gathering lines. PHMSA recently granted the Petition by response letter to GPA and API. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  PHMSA's response to API and GPA's Petition and Supplement Letter can be found in rulemaking docket no. PHMSA-2013-0255 on <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> PHMSA incorporates by reference its response in its entirety within this Notice. </FTNT> On September 22, 2023, GPA and API filed a “Supplement Letter” to the Petition requesting revision of § 195.418(b)(2)(ii) (regarding the spacing interval of shut-off valves on transmission pipeline segments carrying highly volatile liquids) and the groups filed an additional “Supplement Letter” on May 30, 2024, requesting revision of § 195.260(c) (regarding spacing from endpoints of transmission pipeline segments in high consequence areas). PHMSA denied each of these supplements as an untimely petition for reconsideration, and, according to § 190.335(a), will assess them as petitions for rulemaking under §§ 190.331 and 190.333. <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Conforming Corrections Implementing Judicial Decision</HD> In response to the August 30, 2023, Petition, PHMSA makes the following further amendments to the pipeline safety regulations in conformity with the D.C. Circuit decision. PHMSA revises § 192.617(b) through (d) to remove references to Type A gas gathering lines from those requirements and clarify that those provisions are inapplicable to gas gathering lines. Additionally, PHMSA revises § 192.635 to add a disclaimer explicitly stating that section does not apply to gas gathering lines within a new paragraph (c) to align with the previously revised definition for “notification of potential rupture” at § 192.3. Making these amendments conforms to the D.C. Circuit decision. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Regulatory Analyses and Notices</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Statutory/Legal Authority and Good Cause for Immediate Adoption Without Prior Notice and Comment</HD> This document is published under the authority of the Secretary of Transportation delegated to the PHMSA Administrator pursuant to 49 CFR 1.97. Among the statutory authorities delegated to PHMSA are the authorities vested in the Secretary under the Federal Pipeline Safety Statutes (49 U.S.C. 60101 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ). Section 60102(a) authorizes issuance of regulations governing design, installation, inspection, emergency plans and procedures, testing, construction, extension, operation, replacement, and maintenance of pipeline facilities. <E T="03">See also</E> 49 U.S.C. 60102(n) (requiring the Secretary to issue regulations requiring the installation of RMVs or equivalent technology on new and entirely replaced transmission lines). Other authorities delegated to PHMSA include 49 U.S.C. 5103 (regulatory authority to prescribe regulations for transportation of hazardous materials) and 30 U.S.C. 185(w)(3) (authority to prescribe reporting requirements for pipelines traversing Federal lands). <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>   <E T="03">See also</E> 87 FR at 20978 (Valve Rule statutory authorities). </FTNT> PHMSA finds it has good cause to make the judicially conforming corrections without notice and comment pursuant to section 553(b) of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA, 5 U.S.C. 551 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ). Section 553(b)(B) of the APA provides that, when an agency for good cause finds that notice and public procedure are impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest, the agency may issue a rule without providing notice and an opportunity for public comment. The APA good cause exception applies “when rulemaking without notice and comment is a reasonable and perhaps inevitable response to a court order” such that the court order would make additional comment “utterly unnecessary.” <E T="03">EME Homer City Generation, LP</E> v. <E T="03">EPA,</E> 795 F.3d 118, 134-35 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (internal quotations omitted). These corrections rectify unintended omissions from PHMSA's August 1, 2023, Correction Rule to ensure the regulations conform with judicial review of the final Valve Rule. Good cause exists to further ensure part 192 conforms with the D.C. Circuit's order, <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> and PHMSA finds that additional comment on these corrections is unnecessary as no comment here can “change[ ] that fact” of the court's order to vacate the Valve Rule amendments as to gathering lines. <E T="03">See EME Homer,</E> 795 F.3d at 135. <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>   <E T="03">GPA Midstream Ass'n,</E> 67 F.4th at 1202. </FTNT> Similarly, good cause authorizes the immediate effective date of these additional corrections. Section 553(d)(3) of the APA provides that a rule should take effect not less than 30 days after publication in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> , except for when good cause is found by the agency and published within the rule allowing for earlier effect. 5 U.S.C. 553(d)(3). “[T]he purpose of the thirty-day waiting period is to give affected parties a reasonable time to adjust their behavior before the final rule takes effect.” <E T="03">Omnipoint Corp.</E> v. <E T="03">F.C.C.,</E> 78 F.3d 620, 630 (D.C. Cir. 1996). PHMSA finds that, for the same reasons stated above, there is good cause under section 553(d)(3) of the APA to make these revisions effective immediately upon publication in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Executive Order 12866 and DOT Regulatory Policies and Procedures</HD> This document has been evaluated in accordance with Executive Order 12866 (“Regulatory Planning and Review”), <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> Executive Order 14094 (“Modernizing Regulatory Review”), <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> and DOT Order 2100.6A (“Rulemaking and Guidance Procedures”) and is considered not significant; therefore, this document has not been reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 21k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━