New Mark-up Hearing Scheduled

Yesterday evening the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee added a markup hearing for tomorrow. Among the bills to be considered will be HR 2576, a bill that affects the pipeline safety law by amending 49 USC 60102(p), the Limitation on Incorporation of Documents by Reference.

The bill revises that paragraph (added in January, 2012 by PL 112-90, the Pipeline Safety, Regulatory Certainty, and Job Creation Act of 2011) to read:

“Beginning 3 years after the date of enactment of this subsection, the Secretary may not issue a regulation pursuant to this chapter that incorporates by reference any documents or portions thereof unless the documents or portions thereof are made available to the public, free of charge.”

The bill changed the time limit from one year to 3 years {§1(1)}, removed the words ‘guidance or’ from the phrase “not issue guidance or a regulation” {§1(2)}, and removed the words “on an Internet Web Site” from the end of the paragraph.

In short, this bill would expand, slightly, the use of incorporation by reference that was restricted somewhat by the 2012 law.

Given the number of other bills being considered by the Committee during this hearing, I don’t expect that any significant changes will be made to this bill in mark-up. The bill will certainly pass in committee and I suspect that it will pass on the floor without significant opposition if it gets to the floor. It might also get added to the DOT authorization bill.