Review - PHMSA Publishes 60-day ICR Notice for Revisions to Gas Pipeline Reporting

Today, DOT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) published a 60-day ICR revision notice in the Federal Register (89 FR 20751-20755) for “Mitigation of Ruptures on Onshore Gas Transmission and Gathering, Hazardous Liquid, and Carbon Dioxide Pipeline Segments Using Rupture-Mitigation Valves or Alternative Equivalent Technologies and Blending of Hydrogen Gas and Natural Gas Within Gas Pipelines”. According to the notice summary:

“The proposed information collection changes would provide data necessary to demonstrate an alternative approach to the implementation of Recommendation P–11–11 made by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and allow PHMSA to identify trends related to the blending of hydrogen gas and natural gas within gas pipelines from operator-submitted data.”

Changes are being proposed to the following existing ICRs:

2137–0627, National Registry of Pipeline and LNG Operators,

2137–0635, Incident Reports for Natural Gas Pipeline Operators,

2137–0629, Annual Report for Gas Distribution Operators,

2137–0522, Annual Reports for Gas Pipeline Operators,

2137–0614, Hazardous Liquid Pipeline Operator Annual Reports, and

2137–0596 National Pipeline Mapping Program

The existing and proposed burden estimates are shown below:

Public Comments

PHMSA is soliciting public comments on the proposed changes to these currently approved information collections. Comments may be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulations.gov; Docket #PHMSA-2022-0085). Comments should be submitted by May 24^th, 2024.

Commentary

It is interesting that these changes to reporting requirements are, for the most part, reducing (according to the table above) the annual burden. The problem is that those changes are not what is being reported by the ICR notice. In three cases the discrepancy is due to the fact that I used data from a currently pending ICR revisions for the following ICR’s: 2137-0629, 2137-0522, 2137-0596. There is nothing in the discussion in today’s notice that would indicate that those earlier proposed changes have been rescinded. I have no idea what is going on with 2137– 0614. We will have wait to see the Supporting Document that PHMSA provides to OIRA after the 30-day ICR is published.

For more details about the changes being proposed by PHMSA, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/phmsa-publishes-60-day-icr-notice - subscription required.