OMB Approves Change to PHMSA Pipeline Integrity Management ICR

On Friday the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced that it had approved the PHMSA request for a renewal of their information collection request (ICR) supporting the Gas Transmission Pipeline Integrity Management program. The renewal included some changes to the ICR that reduced the number of expected responses by about 50% and reduced the burden hours by only about 1%.

Neither the 60-day ICR notice nor the 30-day ICR notice explained the reduction in reports or burden hours being requested. The OMB announcement notes that:

“The hours/responses removed represent biannual reporting that is now collected on the Gas Transmission Annual Report under OMB Control 2137-0522 [Link added].”

Interestingly, the recent change to the Gas Transmission Annual Report ICR shows no change in the number of responses and only an increase in burden hours of 5,744. This is only about half of the decrease seen in this ICR. If this holds up in actual practice (and no one will ever really know since this is just a bureaucratic estimate) this will be a net gain for the industry.

BTW: The other ICR renewal, Response Plan for on Shore Oil Pipelines (2137-0589) that was requested in the same ICR notice as this ICR is still pending review at OMB.