Pipeline Safety: Eliminating Burdensome and Duplicative Deadlines for Gas Pipeline Coating Damage Assessments and Remedial Actions

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Part 192</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. PHMSA-2025-0114]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2137-AF84</RIN> <SUBJECT>Pipeline Safety: Eliminating Burdensome and Duplicative Deadlines for Gas Pipeline Coating Damage Assessments and Remedial Actions</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM). <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> PHMSA is proposing to revise the regulations related to coating damage assessments and remedial actions for gas transmission pipeline operators by adjusting the timeframe in which operators must perform external anti-corrosion coating assessments and any repairs following an unsatisfactory assessment result. This proposed change will provide significant cost savings to gas transmission pipeline operators, eliminate ineffective regulations, and simplify current requirements. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Persons interested in submitting written comments on this NPRM must do so by September 2, 2025. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by the Docket Number PHMSA-2025-0114 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. For commenting instructions and additional information about commenting, see <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> . <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Robert Jagger, Senior Transportation Specialist, by telephone at 202-366-4361 or by email at <E T="03">robert.jagger@dot.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. General Discussion</HD> PHMSA is proposing to revise the current requirements governing the timelines for operators to perform assessments of external anti-corrosion coating following installation of pipe in a ditch ( <E T="03">see</E> §§ 192.319(d) and 192.461(f)) and to complete remedial actions following an unsatisfactory assessment ( <E T="03">see</E> §§ 192.319(f) and 192.461(h)). The existing requirements state that, for certain projects, operators must perform coating damage assessments on the pipeline using direct current voltage gradient (DCVG) surveys, alternating current voltage gradient (ACVG) surveys, or other technology that provides comparable information about the integrity of the pipeline's coating “promptly” following the completion of any backfilling of the trench (and in any event no later than 6 months following in-service date of the pipeline). The existing requirements also direct operators to develop remedial action plans, and apply for any necessary permits, within 6 months of completing an assessment that identifies coating deficiencies. PHMSA has preliminarily determined that these provisions are impractical, unduly burdensome, and unnecessary. The approach in §§ 192.319(d) and 192.461(f) of linking assessment performance deadlines to the date of backfill completion is often difficult to implement, as operators and regulators cannot always determine when backfilling has officially started or completed; in fact, there might be numerous backfilling dates throughout a project's duration. That uncertainty is compounded by the use of vague durational language (“promptly [after the backfill]”) in each regulatory provision. Similarly, the approach in §§ 192.319(f) and 192.419(h) of linking timelines based on the date of application for required permits has also proven challenging in practice. Pipeline projects can involve multiple permits—none of which would be issued by PHMSA—applied for and obtained at different times; operators must incur administrative costs associated with tracking the status of these permits to ensure compliance with PHMSA regulations. Industry trade associations have noted that these implementation challenges arising from the current text of §§ 192.319 and 192.461 have real-world financial consequences for operators who often choose to respond to this regulatory uncertainty by erring on the side of caution and performing more (expensive) coating assessments than may be necessary for evaluating the coating protection of their pipelines. Operators may also find themselves creating parallel permit tracking systems within those parts of their organizations responsible for each of compliance with PHMSA regulatory requirements and obtaining necessary construction permits (Docket No. DOT-OST-2025-0026-0897 (May 5, 2025)). PHMSA proposes to streamline each of the above provisions to address these implementation challenges. With respect to §§ 192.319(d) and 192.461(f), PHMSA proposes to eliminate vague language (“promptly”) in the opening sentence of those provisions as well as eliminate the references to “backfill” as a milestone from which the timeline for conducting coating assessments begins. By way of substitute, PHMSA instead proposes to link assessment timelines in each provision to a milestone—the pipeline segment's in-service date—that is understood throughout the industry as a discrete moment of time memorialized in operator work management systems, and which is already referenced in provisions throughout the pipeline safety regulations (PSRs, 49 CFR parts 190-199). PHMSA proposes to eliminate references in §§ 192.319(f) and 192.419(h) to permit application dates and instead emphasize the date of the failed coating assessment for calculation of timelines for performing remedial actions. PHMSA understands these amendments align with industry stakeholder recommendations. PHMSA does not expect these proposed regulatory amendments would adversely affect safety, as they will likely facilitate operator implementation of external corrosion protection assessment requirements by substituting discrete milestones for vague language and prolonged processes referenced in current regulatory text. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Commenting</HD> <E T="03">Instructions:</E> Please include the docket number PHMSA-2025-0114 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 United States Code (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 Robert Jagger, 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">robert.jagger@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">https://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. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Regulatory Analysis and Notices</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Legal Authority</HD> This proposed rule is published under the authority of the Secretary of Transportation set forth in the Federal Pipeline Safety Laws (49 U.S.C. 60101 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) and delegated to the PHMSA Administrator pursuant to 49 CFR 1.97. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Executive Order 12866; Regulatory Planning and Review</HD> Exe ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 27k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━