Pipeline Safety: Rationalize Special Permit Conditions

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Part 190</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. PHMSA-2025-0135; Amdt. No. 190-22]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2137-AF81</RIN> <SUBJECT>Pipeline Safety: Rationalize Special Permit Conditions</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. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> PHMSA is proposing to clarify that the conditions in a special permit must relate directly and substantially to the requirement in the Federal Pipeline Safety Regulations that an applicant is seeking to waive. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before September 2, 2025. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by the Docket Number PHMSA-2025-0135 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> Sayler Palabrica, Transportation Specialist, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590, 202-744-0825, <E T="03">sayler.palabrica@dot.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. General Discussion</HD> Congress has authorized PHMSA to issue an order to the owner or operator of a pipeline facility waiving compliance with any standard prescribed in the Federal Pipeline Safety Regulations “on terms [PHMSA] considers appropriate if [PHMSA] determines that the waiver is not inconsistent with pipeline safety.” 49 U.S.C. 60118(c)(1)(A), (c)(2)(A). PHMSA can issue these waivers either on an emergency basis, provided certain conditions are met, or a non-emergency basis. 49 U.S.C. 60118(c)(1) and (2). If a waiver is granted, PHMSA must state the reasons in the order for providing that relief. 49 U.S.C. 60118(c)(3). Congress has also authorized state authorities with a certification or agreement with PHMSA to issue orders to owners or operators of intrastate pipeline facilities “waiv[ing] compliance with a safety standard to which the certification or agreement applies in the same way and to the same extent” as PHMSA. 49 U.S.C. 60118(d). To issue such a waiver, the state authority “must give [PHMSA] written notice . . . at least 60 days before its effective date.” 49 U.S.C. 60118(d). “If [PHMSA] makes a written objection before the effective date of the waiver, the waiver is stayed” until PHMSA makes a final decision. 49 U.S.C. 60118(d). PHMSA refers to these congressionally authorized waivers as “special permits” and has codified procedures for the issuance of the same in 49 CFR 190.341. The procedures address, among other things, the information that must be contained in a special permit application; the process that PHMSA follows in deciding whether to grant, deny, or renew a special permit; and the circumstances where PHMSA may seek to revoke, suspend, or modify a special permit. 49 CFR 190.341. In addition, the procedures generally state that if a special permit is granted, “[c]onditions may be imposed . . . if [PHMSA] concludes they are necessary to assure safety, environmental protection, or are otherwise in the public interest.” 49 CFR 190.341(d)(2). Experience has shown that the current language in the special permit procedures provides too much discretion to PHMSA in determining the conditions that should be included in granting a waiver. PHMSA has in the past often imposed conditions that are not directly, or even substantially, related to the requirement in the Federal Pipeline Safety Regulations that the applicant asked to be waived. As a result of that historical practice, owners and operators of pipeline facilities are unable to predict what types of conditions will be accepted by or imposed by PHMSA in granting a special permit. These uncertain and inconsistent outcomes also discourage owners and operators from applying for special permits or from proposing conditions to address directly potential risks in their applications. PHMSA's historical practice has impeded the agency's ability to modernize the Federal Pipeline Safety Regulations to accommodate innovative technologies and practices as well. Special permits can serve as a proving ground for evaluating such technologies and practices for potential adoption by regulation under PHMSA's continuing oversight. Multiple external stakeholders have called on PHMSA to improve alignment between the regulatory provisions being waived and special permit conditions. In response to a request for information on deregulation (90 FR 14593 (Apr. 3, 2025)), the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA) criticized PHMSA's practice of adopting special permits containing “numerous” conditions (Docket No. DOT-OST-2025-0026-0872 (May 5, 2025)). Other pipeline industry trade associations have echoed that criticism, calling on Congress to act to limit PHMSA's imposition of special permit conditions “unrelated” to the regulatory provision being waived. Members of Congress have responded to those concerns, echoing interest in streamlining special permit conditions in their public statements and draft legislation introduced, for example, through the Promoting Innovation in Pipeline Efficiency and Safety Act of 2023. To address these concerns, PHMSA is proposing to amend § 190.341 to impose a limitation on the types of conditions that can be included special permits. The proposal would require that such conditions be directly and substantially related to the provision in the Federal Pipeline Safety Regulations being waived. PHMSA does not expect that the proposed revisions would have any adverse effect on pipeline safety. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Commenting</HD> <E T="03">Instructions:</E> Please include the docket number PHMSA-2025-0135 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 Sayler Palabrica, Office of Pipeline Safety, 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">sayler.palabrica@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. <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> Executive Order (E.O.) 12866 (“Regulatory Planning and Review”; 58 FR 5 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 24k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━