Review – HR 6510 Introduced – Composite Pipes for Hydrogen Pipelines

Last month, Rep Molinaro (R,NY) introduced HR 6510, the Hydrogen Safety and Environmental Responsibility Act. This bill would require DOT to “complete a study assessing the potential and existing use of pipelines constructed with composite materials to safely transport hydrogen and hydrogen blended with natural gas.” No funding is authorized by this legislation.

Moving Forward

Both Molinaro and his sole cosponsor {Rep Allred (D,TX)} are members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to which this bill was assigned for primary consideration. This typically means that there could be sufficient influence to see this bill considered in Committee. There may be some objections to this bill from pipeline safety advocates, but I do not expect that there would be sufficient opposition to block passage in Committee. I suspect that there would be enough bipartisan support for this bill to move to the floor of the House under the suspension of the rules process.

Because there is similar language in HR 6494, there will be no action on this bill while the larger PIPES Act is pending consideration. This bill will move forward, only if HR 6494 fails (unlikely) or the composite pipe study requirement is removed from the final version of the bill.

Commentary

The interest in composite materials in this bill is due to the fact that hydrogen gas is very reactive with most metals used in pipeline construction. This results in an increase in brittleness of the metal and a decrease in the strength of the pipeline. The composite material can be either a high-strength plastic pipe or a plastic lining to a conventional metal pipe.

 

For more details about the provisions of this bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-6510-introduced - subscription required.