Review - HR 7655 Introduced – Pipeline Safety

Back in March, Rep Duncan (R,SC) introduced HR 7655, the Pipeline Safety, Modernization, and Expansion Act of 2024. This bill provides for the reauthorization of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s (PHMSA) Pipeline Safety Regulations (PSR). This bill is similar to HR 6494, the PIPES Act, which was introduced by Rep Graves (R,MO) and reported favorably by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Topics of potential interest here include:

§10. Strengthening penalties for pipeline safety violations.

§12. Maximum allowable operating pressure.

§14. Pipeline safety voluntary information-sharing system.

§18. Regulatory updates.

§19. Class location changes

Committee Action

On March 20^th, 2024, the House Energy and Commerce Committee held a markup hearing that included consideration of this bill. The bill was amended (the current record does not show which amendments were approved) and then approved by a vote of 27 to 18 (which sounds like a party-line vote, but again no data is available).

Moving Forward

Typically, once a committee orders a bill reported, the publication of that report enables the bill to be considered by the full House. With split committee support like the 27 to 18 vote indicates, the bill would not be considered for consideration under the suspension of the rules process because such bills require a supermajority for passage. So, this bill would have to be considered under regular order. While ‘regular order’ in the House is less complicated than in the Senate, it still requires a level of political importance, that probably cannot be ascribed to this bill.

But this is not a typical situation. The Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is the committee to which this bill was assigned for primary consideration. Until that Committee takes action on this bill, it will not proceed to the floor (okay, the Chair of the TI Committee could give permission for it to proceed without that Committee’s action, but that ain’t gonna happen, Chair prerogatives are too important).

Commentary

This bill was crafted by the Energy and Commerce Committee staff because the committee leadership was not satisfied with one or more provisions of the HR 6494, the PIPES Act, which was offered by the Chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. That bill was ordered reported back in December of 2023. Energy and Commerce was assigned secondary consideration on the PIPES Act bill, so that bill is also tied up waiting for EC’s consent to move that bill to the floor.