Pipeline Safety Advisory Committees Teleconference – 12-17-13

The Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration (PHMSA) published a meeting notice in today’ Federal Register (78 FR 70623-70624) for a teleconference of a joint meeting of the Gas Pipeline Advisory Committee (GPAC) and the Liquid Pipeline Advisory Committee (LPAC) (Shared Web Site) on December 17^th, 2013.

The joint meeting will consider a proposed rule to incorporate by reference two new standards and 21 updated editions of currently referenced standards in 49 CFR Parts 192, 193, and 195. This is apparently the “Periodic Updates of Regulatory References to Technical Standards and Miscellaneous Amendments” NPRM that according to the Spring 2013 Regulatory Agenda is supposed to be published in December. Obviously, that date won’t be met as this meeting is part of the regulatory review process at PHMSA before that NPRM would be published. I suspect that the earliest this will go to the Office of Management and Budget for their final review will be sometime in January.

One of the topics that should come up in this discussion will be how these updates will be made while complying with the congressional mandate {§24 of the Pipeline Safety, Regulatory Certainty, and Job Creation Act of 2011 (PL 112-90)} to reduce reliance on such incorporation by reference documents. That requirement prohibited PHMSA from using such documents unless they were available without charge to the regulated community. There are on-going discussions in PHMSA about this issue and Congress modified the requirements earlier this year (PL 113-30).

The public is invited to follow the teleconference (there is no mention in the notice of allowing public comments during the discussion) either via telephone or in person (in Washington, DC). The teleconference number will be made available on the PHMSA web site at some future date (though the PHMSA web site is circuitous at best). There is a link to the meeting page where you are supposed to be able to register for the in-person option, but as of 05:30 CST this morning there is no sign-up information on that site.

Public comments are being solicited but there is some confusion about where to send the comments. There are two different docket numbers referenced in the notice for use on the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulations.gov).  The first docket number PHMSA-2009-020 is the generic docket number for the meetings of these two advisory committees. Since it contains a copy of today’s FR notice it is probably the proper place to post comments. The second docket number reference (PHMSA-2013-2003) is almost certainly a bad misprint as there have not been 2002 PHMSA docket entries this year.

PHMSA Announces Pipeline Advisory Committees’ Meeting

The Pipeline Hazardous Material and Safety Administration posted a meetings notice in today’s Federal Register (78 FR 41496-41497) for two pipeline advisor committee meeting to be held on August 8^th and 9^th in Arlington, VA. The two committees are the Gas Pipeline Advisory Committee (GPAC) and the Liquid Pipeline Advisory Committee (LPAC). These two committees routinely meet at the same time since they share some sessions in common. They advise PHMSA on the technical feasibility, practicability, and cost-effectiveness of each proposed pipeline safety standard.

There is very limited information about the current agenda for this meeting. The notice only states that: “The committees will meet in joint session to discuss a variety of topics to keep committee members up-to-date on DOT's pipeline safety program.” Further information will be posted on the PHMSA web site prior to the meeting.

Public participation is being solicited by PHMSA, but PHMSA is not planning on web casting this meeting. Written comments may be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulations.gov; Docket # PHMSA-2013-0156). Comments should be submitted within 30 days of the end of the meeting. Those wishing to make an oral statement at the meeting need to register by July 22^nd, 2013 by sending an email to cheryl.whetsel@dot.gov.

PHMSA Advisory Pipeline Advisory Committees to Meet

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) published a notice in Monday’s Federal Register (77 FR 70543; available on-line yesterday) that it’s two pipeline safety advisory committees, the Gas Pipeline Advisory Committee (GPAC) and the Liquid Pipeline Advisory Committee (LPAC), will be holding meetings over a three day period starting December 11^th, 2012 in Alexandria, VA. The meetings will cover two new pipeline safety rules under development.

Schedule

The LPAC will meet on December 11^th and the GPAC will meet on December 13^th. Both meetings will be half-day affairs. The two will hold a joint meeting all day on December 12^th. The last time these two committees met (back in July) they held their joint meeting first and then held their separate meetings afterward. Apparently a scheduling conflict prevented things from happening that way this time.

Agenda

The notice does state that there will be two topics to be addressed at these meetings, two pipeline safety rules. Those rules address:

• Implement changes to the administrative procedures in Part 190 Enforcement Procedures; and

• Establishment of criteria and procedures for determining the adequacy of state pipeline excavation damage prevention law enforcement programs.

The first appears to be a new rulemaking initiative from PHMSA. There is nothing mentioning this in the latest Unified Agenda. Of course the Obama Administration has not updated the UA since they published the Fall 2011 Agenda in January of this year. We will have to wait and see what information is published on the PHMSA web site or the Federal eRulemaking Portal before this meeting to see what is being proposed.

The second appears to be a follow-up on the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that was published last March. Since that comment period ended July 9^th and there were 38 comments posted to the Federal eRulemaking portal (www.regulations.gov; Docket PHMSA-2009-0192) for that NPRM, PHMSA seems to be moving fairly quickly on preparing the final rule on this topic.

The notice does not provide a breakdown of which topics will be specifically addressed at the joint meeting versus the stand alone meetings. Presumably the topics at the joint meeting will not be too much of a carryover from the stand alone meetings because of the way the GPAC meeting follows the joint meeting.

The TPSSAC web site does not provide any information on this meeting as of 07:00 EST this morning. There is a mention of the meeting but the link provided is merely a place holder not an actual link. Please note the name changes that are apparently being made for these two committees from their overly long ‘Technical Pipeline Safety Standards Advisory Committee’ titles. The change that is mentioned in passing in this Notice is not yet reflected on the web site.

Public Comments

PHMSA will not be web casting these meetings, alas an ongoing trend apparently for these two advisory committees. The meetings are open to the public and written and oral comments are being solicited. There is no mention of needing to register to attend these meetings, but you must notify PHMSA by email (cheryl.whetsel@dot.gov) by December 5^th if you wish to make an oral statement during the meetings.

Written comments may be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulations.gov; Docket number PHMSA-2009-0203). Please note that this docket has not yet been established as of 07:00 EST today.