Review - S 2980 Introduced – Composite Pipes for H2 Pipelines

Earlier this month Sen Moran (R,KS) introduced S 2980, the Innovative and Safe Hydrogen Transportation 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.

S 2980 is essentially the same as HR 6510, the Hydrogen Safety and Environmental Responsibility Act, that was introduced in the House by Rep Molinaro (R,NY) in November 2023. No further action was taken on that bill in the House in the 118th Congress. Additionally, a very similar version of this language was included in HR 6494, the PIPES Act of 2023. Section 14 of that bill would require the same study, except it would give DOT 24 months to complete the study instead of the 18 months provided in this bill. That bill was ordered reported favorably by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in June of 2023. The Committee Report and a reported version of the bill were published, but no further action was taken on the bill in the 118^th Congress.

Moving Forward

Moran is a member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration. This means that there may be sufficient influence to see the bill considered in Committee. While the bill does include a regulatory requirement (generally an anathema for Republicans), this is a permissive regulatory requirement so this may avoid Republican opposition. I expect that there will be bipartisan support for this bill. That should be sufficient in Committee, but this bill is not politically important enough to allow for consideration by the full Senate under regular order. I suspect that there will be enough regulatory resentment and/or alternative-fuel opposition to prevent this bill from being approved under the Senate’s unanimous consent process.

Commentary

The requirement for this study in the bill is pro forma in nature. The heart of this bill is the requirement in §2(e) for DOT to move forward with a rulemaking “to allow for the use of composite materials for pipeline transportation of hydrogen and hydrogen blended with natural gas.” This presupposes that the study would find that such composite use would be safe.

The interest in composite materials in this bill is because 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 information on the provisions of this bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/s-2980-introduced-composite-pipes - subscription required.