Pipeline Safety: Periodic Updates of Regulatory References to Technical Standards and Miscellaneous Amendments; Additional Technical Amendments; Response to Petition for Reconsideration

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Part 192</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. PHMSA-2016-0002; Amdt. No. 192-137]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2137-AF13</RIN> <SUBJECT>Pipeline Safety: Periodic Updates of Regulatory References to Technical Standards and Miscellaneous Amendments; Additional Technical Amendments; Response to Petition for Reconsideration</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule; technical amendments; response to petition for reconsideration. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> PHMSA is issuing technical amendments to regulations promulgated in its April 29, 2024, final rule titled “Periodic Updates of Regulatory References to Technical Standards and Miscellaneous Amendments.” These technical amendments address the incorporation by reference of an updated edition of industry standard, ASME B31.8S, into specific provisions that the final rule did not update due to then-pending litigation. These technical amendments also respond to a Petition for Reconsideration filed on May 29, 2024. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective July 1, 2025. The incorporation by reference of certain material listed in the rule was approved by the Director of the Federal Register as of June 28, 2024. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> <E T="03">Technical Information:</E> Rod Seeley by phone at 281-513-1741 or by email at <E T="03">rodrick.m.seeley@dot.gov.</E> <E T="03">Regulatory Information:</E> Brianna Wilson by phone at 771-215-0969 or by email at <E T="03">brianna.wilson@dot.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background and Need for Technical Amendments</HD> This final rule updates the edition of an industry standard that is incorporated by reference into certain specific regulations in 49 CFR part 192. PHMSA previously declined to update a handful of those references due to litigation challenging the underlying regulatory provisions. The recent resolution of that litigation now allows PHMSA to update the standard referenced in those regulations. On April 29, 2024, PHMSA published a final rule, titled “Pipeline Safety: Periodic Updates of Regulatory References to Technical Standards and Miscellaneous Amendments” (Periodic Standards Update 1 Rule). <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> The Periodic Standards Update 1 Rule amended the Pipeline Safety Regulations (PSR, 49 CFR parts 190-199) at 49 CFR parts 192 and 195 to incorporate by reference all or parts of more than 20 new or updated industry standards. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  89 FR 33264 (Apr. 29, 2024). </FTNT> One of the industry standards that the Periodic Standards Update 1 Rule incorporated by reference was the 2018 edition of ASME B31.8S, “Supplement to B31.8 on Managing System Integrity of Gas Pipelines” (2018 ASME B31.8S). <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> Although PHMSA had previously asked for public comment on whether to incorporate the 2018 ASME B31.8S throughout the PSRs—and the Gas Pipeline Advisory Committee (GPAC) had endorsed that proposal during an October 2021 public meeting, 49 U.S.C. 60115—PHMSA did not do so in the Periodic Standards Update 1 Rule. Instead, PHMSA only updated some of the PSR references to the 2018 ASME B31.8S because of a then-pending legal challenge to another final rule, titled “Pipeline Safety: Safety of Gas Transmission Pipelines: Repair Criteria, Integrity Management Improvements, Cathodic Protection, Management of Change, and Other Related Amendments” (2022 final rule). <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  ASME/ANSI, B31.8S-2004, “Supplement to B31.8 on Managing System Integrity of Gas Pipelines” (Jan. 2005) (ASME B31.8S). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  PHMSA, “Pipeline Safety: Safety of Gas Transmission Pipelines: Repair Criteria, Integrity Management Improvements, Cathodic Protection, Management of Change, and Other Related Amendments—Final Rule,” 87 FR 52224 (Aug. 24, 2022). </FTNT> Specifically, as PHMSA explained in the preamble to the Periodic Standards Update 1 Rule, the challenge to the 2022 final rule involved amendments to certain specific regulations—namely, §§ 192.714 and 192.933—that referenced the 2004 edition of ASME B31.8S. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> Citing the uncertainty created as a result of the litigation, PHMSA declined to incorporate the 2018 ASME B31.8S into §§ 192.714 and 192.933 in the Periodic Standards Update 1 Rule. <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> PHMSA explained that it would consider such an update in a future rulemaking action. <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  Specific sub-paragraphs challenged in the 2022 final rule litigation were §§ 192.714(d) and 192.933(d)(1) and (d)(2)(iv)). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  89 FR at 33270. </FTNT> On May 29, 2024, Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA), the American Public Gas Association (APGA), the American Gas Association (AGA), the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), the Liquid Energy Pipeline Association (LEPA), and the American Petroleum Institute (API) (collectively, the Petitioners) submitted a Petition for Reconsideration of the Periodic Standards Update 1 Rule. <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> The Petitioners asked PHMSA to reconsider its decision not to incorporate the 2018 ASME B31.8S by reference into §§ 192.714(d)(1), 192.933(d)(1), and 192.933(d)(2)(iv), which they argued was not supported by the record, created a regulatory conflict at § 192.714(d)(1), and limited the ability of gas pipeline operators to use certain technologies. The Petitioners also filed a parallel motion to stay the effective date of the Periodic Standards Update 1 Rule. <E T="03">et al.,</E> Doc. No. PHMSA-2016-0002-0014, “Joint Trade Petition for Reconsideration IBR Rule” (May 29, 2024) (Petition for Reconsideration). On May 29, 2004, GPA Midstream Association (GPA) and the American Petroleum Institute (API) also filed a separate Petition for Reconsideration of the Final Rule. GPA and API, Doc. No. PHMSA-2016-0002-0016, “Petition for Reconsideration” (May 29, 2024) (“GPA-API Petition). The GPA-API Petition asked PHMSA to give operators more time to comply with the updated welding standards under API 1104 and API 2350. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>  INGAA <E T="03">et al.,</E> Doc. No. PHMSA-2016-0002, “Petitioners' Motion to Stay Final Rule (May 29, 2024). The Petitioners requested a stay of the Final Rule or, in the alternative, a stay of enforcement. Petitioners' Motion to Stay at 4. On May 29, 2024, GPA and API also filed a parallel motion to stay the effective date of the Final Rule. </FTNT> On June 20, 2024, PHMSA issued a Notice of Limited Enforcement Discretion (Notice) in response to the Petitioner's stay motion. The Notice advised regulated entities that PHMSA would not take any action to enforce the provisions in Periodic Standards Update 1 Rule until January 1, 2025. <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> On December 18, 2024, shortly before that enforcement discretion expired, the 2022 final rule litigation ended, effectively resolving the uncertainty surrounding the regulatory status of §§ 192.714(d) and 192.933(d)(1) and (d)(2)(iv). <SU>9</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>8</SU>  The Notice, which expired by its terms on January 1, 2025, is available in the docket for this rulemaking at Doc. No. PHMSA-2016-0002-0018. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>9</SU>   <E T="03">Interstate Natural Gas Association of America</E> v. <E T="03">Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and United States Department of Transportation,</E> No. 23-1173 (D.C. Cir. Dec. 18, 2024); <E T="03">Interstate Nat. Gas Ass'n of Am.</E> v. <E T="03">Pipeline & Hazardous Materials Safety Admin.,</E> 114 F.4th 744 (D.C. Cir. 2024). </FTNT> Now that the 2022 final rule litigation is complete, PHMSA is amending §§ 192.714(d) and 192.933(d)(1) and (d)(2)(iv) to incorporate the 2018 ASME B31.8S, which was previously approved by the Director of the Federal Register for incorporation by reference in those sections. PHMSA is also making conforming amendments to § 192.7. PHMSA notes that these amendments are supported by the record and consistent with the GPAC's recommendations in the Periodic Standards Update 1 Final Rule. This document also responds to the Petitioners' May 29, 2024, Petition for Reconsideration. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Regulatory Analyses and Notices</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Statutory/Legal Authority</HD> This final rule is published under the authority of the Secretary of Transportation delegated to the PHMSA Administrator under 49 CFR 1.97. Among the statutory authorities vested in the Secretary under the Federal Pipeline Safety Statutes (49 U.S.C. 60101 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ), section 60102(l) authorizes, to the extent appropriate and practicable, the Secretary to update incorporated, voluntary, consensus industry technical standards that were adopted as part of the PSRs to protect public safety and the environment. PHMSA finds it has good cause to make these amendments 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. This final rule contains editorial and technical amendments, including revision to or codification of regulatory language not adopted in the Periodic Standards Update 1 Rule due to then-pending litigation, consistent with statements in the a ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 30k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━