PHMSA Targets Cost Cuts, Tech Upgrades in Major Pipeline Safety Proposal

STEPHEN BARLAS, Contributing Editor, Washington, D.C. (U.S.) 

(P&GJ) — Without a lot of fanfare, the Pipeline & Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) has proposed a number of changes to various current technical safety rules. These are aimed at reducing costs, encouraging new technologies and energizing production for gas pipelines, in compliance with several of President Trump’s executive orders. 

The Pipeline Safety Trust (PST) said PHMSA initiatives, taken as a whole, “…could be the broadest regulatory initiative since the inception of the federal pipeline safety code in 1970.” The PST describes itself as a nonprofit watchdog organization, dedicated to protecting people and the environment from the devastating impacts of pipeline disasters. The proposals would make it easier for pipelines to obtain special permits, in addition to changing deadlines and requirements around gas pipeline coating damage assessments and remedial actions, loosening rules for when to report property damage connected to incident reporting and allowing the use of drones and satellites to patrol pipeline rights-of-way (ROW). 

In May 2025, the Interstate and Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA) advocated for a number of these changes, in response to a U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) request for information on potential deregulatory changes which would square with the Trump administration’s executive orders aimed at decreasing barriers to energy production. PHMSA is part of the DOT. Five proposed rules were forthcoming from the pipeline agency on various potential changes in July. The comment periods for these all ended in early September. 

In each of those separate rulemakings, the INGAA generally applauded the direction in which PHMSA was going, but it also listed further technical changes needed in almost all instances. Regarding potential changes in the special permit application process, PHMSA had already made favorable changes ahead of the formal rulemaking. Those changes were evident in the special permit granted to the Natural Gas Pipeline Company of America, LLC (NGPL) in July, for 16 segments in Texas. 

There were several comments—including some from the PST—opposing the NGPL’s request and asking PHMSA to either deny the special permit, for reasons having to do with potential higher greenhouse gas emissions, or to impose conditions. PHMSA declined to attach any significant conditions when it granted the permit in late July. “We are disappointed to see that in granting the special permit, PHMSA did not require additional measures to be taken by NGPL for the permit, other than incorporating the special permit segment into its IM (integrity management) program,” said Policy & Program Director/Counsel Erin Sutherland, PST. 

Probably referring to the NGPC permit, the INGAA, in its September 3 comments, recognized “…that in recent months, PHMSA has made significant improvements to the special permit review and approval process.” The INGAA also applauded the newly proposed changes which essentially would require that any limits on a special permit relate to the risk and regulation for which the operator is seeking a special permit. Having said that, the comments—signed by Ashlin Bollacker, a former PHMSA staffer who joined the INGAA last May (2024) as director of pipeline safety—said that the INGAA is also seeking three additional changes to the special permit process: (1) clear and consistent application requirements, (2) a predictable review timeframe and (3) a reasonable renewal timeframe. 

The INGAA letter to DOT in May included numerous requests for changes to external pipeline anti-corrosion coating rules, including the requirement to use 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” after the completion of any backfilling of the trench and in any event, no later than six months after the in-service date of the pipeline. 

In its proposed rule, PHMSA adjusted the timeframe in which operators must perform external anti-corrosion coating assessments following pipeline installation and for any repairs that follow an unsatisfactory assessment result. The agency states this will result in savings for pipeline companies. 

Again, the INGAA called these proposed changes “meaningful improvements to regulatory clarity and operational feasibility.” However, the INGAA identified several technical and safety concerns for the proposed requirements that warrant further consideration and modification. These concerns include the failure to clearly define key terms, to address the technical limitations of current assessment methods—for identifying coatings that impede cathodic protection—and the inclusion of prescribed voltage criteria that are not technically sound across different coating systems. 

Increasing property damage thresholds, which motivate incident reporting to the agency, would seem like a relatively small change, especially because the current $50,000 threshold has been around since 1994, and an inflation adjustment to $149,700 is a simple calculation. However, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) is objecting to how PHMSA wants pipelines to determine the costs of any incident to exclude “the costs associated with obtaining permits and removing or replacing infrastructure undamaged by an event.” The agency claims that this change, which was first proposed in August 2023 in the agency’s advanced leak detection (ALDR) technology rulemaking, “was subject to no controversy.” 

The EDF says that is not true. It cites comments by the Pipeline Safety Trust in that 2023 rulemaking, arguing permitting costs “often account for a major percentage of a project’s total impact on the public,” and should therefore be included in the calculation for incident reporting. 

Environmental groups also disagree with some aspects of PHMSA’s plan to allow surveillance of pipeline ROW with aircraft systems and satellite surveillance, as long as they provide current information and imaging quality comparable to traditional aerial patrols. Gas transmission pipelines have to patrol ROW between one and four times each calendar year, depending on the class location of the pipeline and whether the pipeline is located at a highway or railroad crossing. Hazardous liquid pipeline operators inspect the surface conditions on or adjacent to each pipeline ROW at least 26 times each year. These inspections are to discover any leaks or damage, due to excavation or earth movement. 

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and satellite surveys are often less expensive than ground-based surveys or surveys conducted with traditional fixed-wing or rotary-wing aircraft. A UAV or satellite patrol is also less likely to create risks to operator personnel, particularly when compared with patrols conducted using traditional ground-based or aerial technologies. Finally, satellite and UAV patrols are also likely to have lower local air quality and noise impacts, when compared with traditional methods, as unmanned aerial systems are lower in mass than traditional aircraft and often use battery-electric propulsion. 

In its comments, the PST said PHMSA has failed to address the observation differences and capabilities that were discussed at length in the ALDR rulemaking proceeding relative to patrols—and to the extent they apply—leak detection. It argued that to suggest that monitoring ROW from a satellite is equivalent to ground or even aerial-based patrolling is contrary to the public record PHMSA established on this topic.