Pipeline Safety: Standards Update-ASTM A578/A578M

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Part 192</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. PHMSA-2025-0127; Amdt. No. 192-147]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2137-AF96</RIN> <SUBJECT>Pipeline Safety: Standards Update—ASTM A578/A578M</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Direct final rule (DFR); request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This DFR amends the PSRs to incorporate by reference the updated industry standard ASTM A578/A578M, Standard Specification for Straight-Beam Ultrasonic Examination of Rolled Steel Plates for Special Applications. This updated standard will maintain or improve public safety, prevent regulatory confusion, reduce compliance burdens on stakeholders, and satisfy a mandate in the National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act (NTTAA) of 1995. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The DFR is effective January 1, 2026, unless adverse comments are received by September 2, 2025. If adverse comments are received, notification will be published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> before the effective date either withdrawing the rule (in its entirety or portions thereof) or issuing a new final rule which responds to adverse comments. The incorporation by reference of certain material listed in this rule is approved by the Director of the Federal Register as of January 1, 2026. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by the Docket Number PHMSA-2025-0127 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> Brianna Wilson, Transportation Specialist, by phone at (771) 215-0969 or email at <E T="03">brianna.wilson@dot.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. General Discussion</HD> Through this DFR, PHMSA is incorporating by reference an update to a voluntary, consensus industry technical standard already incorporated by reference within the pipeline safety regulations (PSRs, 49 Code of Federal Regulation (CFR) part 192). Specifically, PHMSA is updating the referenced version of the industry standard ASTM A578/A578M, Standard Specification for Straight-Beam Ultrasonic Examination of Rolled Steel Plates for Special Applications. This standard was reapproved in 2023 from the 2017 version. A578/A578M presents the current state of knowledge and technology applicable to the detection of internal discontinuities via straight-beam, pulse-echo, ultrasonic examination of rolled carbon and alloy steel plates that are greater than 3/8ths of an inch thick. The standard also addresses the qualifications required for inspectors of such plates. Reference to the 2017 version will replace the existing reference within 49 CFR 192.112(c) to ASTM A578/A578M-96, “Standard Specification for Straight-Beam Ultrasonic Examination of Plain and Clad Steel Plates for Special Applications,” reapproved January 1, 2001. This updated standard will maintain or improve public safety, prevent regulatory confusion, and reduce compliance burdens on stakeholders. The National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act (NTTAA) of 1995 (15 United States Code (U.S.C.) 272 (note)) directing Federal agencies to “use technical standards developed by voluntary consensus standard bodies instead of government-developed technical standards,” “when practical and consistent with applicable laws.” Consistent with that mandate, PHMSA incorporates more than 80 industry standards by reference into the PSRs; however, many standards become outdated over time as new editions become available. By updating these standards, PHMSA ensures better alignment of the PSRs with the latest innovations in operational and management practices, materials, testing, and technological advancements; enhances compliance by avoiding conflict between different versions of the same industry standards; and facilitates safety-focused allocation of resources by pipeline operators. PHMSA technical experts have also evaluated the changes in the updated version of the specification and concluded that it will either maintain or enhance the protection of public safety. Indeed, PHMSA had in 2022 proposed to update references within part 192 to an intermediate (2017) edition of this standard after preliminarily finding the revisions in that edition enhanced pipeline safety (87 FR 57213, 52723 (Aug. 19, 2022)); PHMSA's evaluation of the handful of changes introduced in the standard since 2017 yield a similar conclusion regarding their safety impact. PHMSA further concludes that the direct final rule's updated standard is technically feasible, reasonable, cost-effective, and practicable because of its respective anticipated commercial and public safety benefits; and because the benefits better support PHMSA's safety priorities compared to alternatives, thereby justifying any associated compliance costs. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Availability of Materials to Interested Parties</HD> Pursuant to section 24 of the Pipeline Safety, Regulatory Certainty, and Job Creation Act of 2011 (Pub. L. 112-90, 49 U.S.C. 60102(p), as amended), “the Secretary may not issue a regulation pursuant to this chapter that incorporates any documents or portions thereof unless the documents or portions thereof are made available to the public, free of charge.” On November 7, 2014, the Office of the Federal Register issued a final rule that revised 1 CFR 51.5 to require every Federal agency to “[d]iscuss, in the preamble of the proposed rule, the ways that the materials it proposes to incorporate by reference are reasonably available to interested parties or how it worked to make those materials reasonably available to interested parties[.]” PHMSA consequently has negotiated agreements to make viewable copies of the standards available to the public at no cost. ASTM International (ASTM) agreed to the public access requirements of the statutory mandate discussed above. The organization's mailing address and website is listed in 49 CFR part 192. The ASTM standards incorporated in this final rule are available from the following website: <E T="03">https://www.astm.org/products-services/reading-room.html.</E> Additional information regarding standards availability can be found at <E T="03">https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/standards-rulemaking/pipeline/standards-incorporated-reference.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Commenting</HD> <E T="03">Instructions:</E> Please include the docket number PHMSA-2025-0127 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, Standards and Rulemaking Division, 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:</ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 26k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━