Pipeline Safety: Amendments to Liquefied Natural Gas Facilities

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Part 193</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. PHMSA-2019-0091]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2137-AF45</RIN> <SUBJECT>Pipeline Safety: Amendments to Liquefied Natural Gas Facilities</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM). <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> PHMSA is publishing this advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) to solicit stakeholder feedback on potential amendments to the pipeline safety regulations governing liquefied natural gas (LNG). </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments on this ANPRM must be submitted by July 7, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by the Docket Number PHMSA-2019-0091 using any of the following methods: <E T="03">E-Gov Web: https://www.regulations.gov.</E> This site allows the public to enter comments on any <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notice issued by any agency. Follow the online instructions for submitting comments. <E T="03">Mail:</E> Docket Management System: U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590-0001. <E T="03">Hand Delivery:</E> U.S. DOT Docket Management System: West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. <E T="03">Fax:</E> 1-202-493-2251. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> Please include the docket number PHMSA-2019-0091 at the beginning of your comments. If you submit your comments by mail, submit two copies. If you wish to receive confirmation that PHMSA received your comments, include a self-addressed stamped postcard. Internet users may submit comments at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> <NOTE> <HD SOURCE="HED">Note:</HD> Comments are posted without changes or edits to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> including any personal information provided. There is a privacy statement published on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> </NOTE> <E T="03">Privacy Act:</E> In accordance with 5 U.S.C. 553(c), DOT solicits comments from the public to inform its rulemaking process. DOT posts these comments, without edit, including any personal information the commenter provides, to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> as described in the system of records notice (DOT/ALL-14 FDMS), which can be reviewed at <E T="03">https://www.dot.gov/privacy.</E> <E T="03">Confidential Business Information:</E> Confidential Business Information (CBI) is commercial or financial information that is both customarily and actually treated as private by its owner. Under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA, 5 U.S.C. 552), CBI is exempt from public disclosure. It is important that you clearly designate the comments submitted as CBI if: your comments responsive to this document contain commercial or financial information that is customarily treated as private; you actually treat such information as private; and your comment is relevant or responsive to this notice. Pursuant to 49 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 190.343, you may ask PHMSA to provide confidential treatment to information you give to the agency by taking the following steps: (1) mark each page of the original document submission containing CBI as “Confidential”; (2) send PHMSA, along with the original document, a second copy of the original document with the CBI deleted; and (3) explain why the information that you are submitting is CBI. Submissions containing CBI should be sent to Brianna Wilson, Office of Pipeline Safety (PHP-30), Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), 2nd Floor, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590-0001, or by email at <E T="03">brianna.wilson@dot.gov.</E> Any materials PHMSA receives that is not specifically designated as CBI will be placed in the public docket. <E T="03">Docket:</E> For access to the docket to read background documents or comments received, go to <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the online instructions for accessing the docket. Alternatively, you may review the documents in person at the street address listed above. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> <E T="03">General:</E> Brianna Wilson, Transportation Specialist, by phone at (771) 215-0969, or by email at <E T="03">brianna.wilson@dot.gov.</E> <E T="03">Technical:</E> Thach Nguyen, Supervisory General Engineer, by phone at (909) 262-4464, or by email at <E T="03">thach.d.nguyen@dot.gov.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Executive Summary</HD> PHMSA is publishing this advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) to solicit stakeholder feedback on potential opportunities for amendment of its regulations governing the siting, design, installation, construction, inspection, testing, operation, and maintenance of LNG facilities at 49 CFR part 193. Those requirements have not been substantially revised for over two decades. In the years since, the U.S. LNG industry has become truly global in scale and geopolitical importance; the sophistication of technology and operating practices within LNG facilities regulated by PHMSA have similarly evolved at a breakneck pace. In recognition of these developments, Congress, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), and industry stakeholders have repeatedly called on PHMSA to update its part 193 regulations to better align with current technologies, operational best practices, and lessons learned. In response to these recommendations and mandates, PHMSA now solicits stakeholder feedback on potential amendments to its part 193 LNG facility requirements that will inform a forthcoming notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) in this proceeding. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background</HD> PHMSA's last significant amendments to its part 193 regulations governing LNG facilities date to 2004. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> Current regulations rely heavily on the 2001 edition of a consensus industry standard—National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 59A, “Standard for the Production, Storage, and Handling of Liquefied Natural Gas” (NFPA 59A)  <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> —that has since been updated multiple times. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  Research and Special Projects Administration, “Pipeline Safety: Liquefied Natural Gas Facilities; Clarifying and Updating Safety Standards,” 69 FR 11336 (Mar. 10, 2004). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  PHMSA elsewhere in this ANPRM refers to specific editions of NFPA 59A by adding the date of those editions as a suffix; by way of example, “NFPA 59A-2023” refers to the 2023 edition of NFPA 59A. </FTNT> In the interim, the U.S. LNG industry has emerged as a driver of the U.S. domestic economy, a lynchpin of international commerce, and a critical instrument for advancing U.S. strategic interests. A recent study predicts the U.S. LNG industry over the next 16 years will contribute around $1.3 trillion to U.S. Gross Domestic Product—including more than $2.5 trillion in total revenues for U.S. businesses, $165 billion in Federal and State tax revenues, more than $500 billion in labor income, and support an average of nearly a half-million U.S. jobs annually. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  Yergin et al., <E T="03">Major New U.S. Industry at a Crossroads: a U.S. LNG Industry Impact Study—Phase 1</E> (Dec. 2024), <E T="03">available at https://www.spglobal.com/en/research-insights/special-reports/major-new-us-industry-at-a-crossroads-us-lng-impact-study-phase-1.</E> </FTNT> Meanwhile, the United States is the largest international exporter of LNG, is the source of roughly 22% of worldwide LNG supply, and is a critical supplier to energy markets in Europe and Asia (the top destinations for U.S. LNG exports). U.S. LNG exports play an outsized role in advancing U.S. strategic interests, improving the nation's trade balance, and supporting the energy needs of resource-constrained strategic allies. U.S. LNG facility technologies and operations have evolved alongside the expansion and growing importance of the industry. When PHMSA issued its last major updates to the part 193 regulations in 2004, most LNG facilities regulated by PHMSA were relatively small facilities focused on the U.S. domestic market: LNG import facilities and “peak-shaving” facilities supporting local gas distribution companies. But even as those LNG facilities remain common, there is increasing interest within the U.S. domestic LNG market for small-scale or mobile or temporary LNG facilities supporting novel applications, including (but not limited to): marine bunkering for fueling maritime vessels; trucking fleet transportation fueling; alternative gas supply for pipeline testing activity; off-grid electric power and heat generation; and electric power continuity for data centers. At the same time, the re-orientation of the U.S. LNG industry toward international markets has resulted in the construction of a number of massive, capital-intensive, and increasingly sophisticated LNG export terminals. The LNG industry has compiled and memorialized the lessons learned and best practices in designing, constructing, and operating each of these types of LNG facilities over the last two decades in consensus industry standards—culminating in the latest edition of NFPA 59A that was published in 2023. Recognizing that PHMSA regulations have not kept pace with technological innovation and best practices in the LNG industry, policymakers and other stakeholders have repeatedly called on PHMSA to update its part 193 regulations. GAO in 2020 criticized PHMSA for not having con ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 31k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━