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Notice of Proposed Rulemaking “Pipeline Safety: Safety of Hazardous Liquid Pipelines”

As published in 80 FR 61610 on October 13, 2015, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) is proposing to make certain changes to the hazardous liquid (HL) pipeline safety regulations. The proposed changes include the following:

(1) extend reporting requirements to gravity lines;
(2) extend certain reporting requirements to HL gathering lines located outside of high consequence areas (HCAs);
(3) require inspections of pipelines in areas affected by extreme weather, natural disasters, and other similar events within 72 hours and appropriate remedial action to ensure the safe operation of a pipeline;
(4) require assessments of pipelines located in non-HCAs every 10 years using in-line inspection (ILI) tools;
(5) expand the use of leak detection systems to HL pipelines located in non-HCAs to mitigate the effects of failures that occur outside of HCAs;
(6) modify the Integrity Management (IM) repair criteria and apply those same criteria to pipelines that are not subject to the IM requirements;
(7) increase the use of ILI tools by requiring that any pipeline that could affect an HCA be capable of accommodating these devices within 20 years, unless its basic construction will not permit that accommodation; and
(8) resolve inconsistent deadlines, clarify requirements for information integration, clarify definition of covered pipeline facilities, and specify timeframe for rechecking HCA status for the IM Plan.

For additional information, see Docket PHMSA-2010-0229.