Blogs

PHMSA Proposes Build America, Buy America Waiver for Meters and Some Risers Purchased for Grant Program Projects

By Erin Kurilla posted 08-15-2024 09:33 AM

  
On August 13, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) published a proposed Build America, Buy America (BABA) waiver for meters and some risers purchased for projects funded through the PHMSA Natural Gas Distribution Infrastructure Safety and Modernization (NGDISM) grant program.
 
PHMSA narrowed the proposed waivers for risers because it identified a company who could produce BABA-compliant versions of certain types of gas risers. “Specifically, the company PHMSA identified currently produces standard “anodeless service risers” that meet the requirements of BABA but could not produce the “field assembly risers” or “service head adapter risers” that are sometimes used in lieu of standard risers, and that are needed by some NGDISM recipients. Accordingly, PHMSA narrowed the scope of its proposed waiver to exclude standard anodeless service risers.” PHMSA also originally intended to include service regulators in the scope of the waiver, but decided to remove them due to a lack of information concerning anticipated demand. PHMSA asked for commenters to provide information concerning “the demand for service regulators purchased through the NGDISM program to inform its future consideration of any potential waivers of BABA requirements for service regulators.”
 
Comments are due on August 28, 2024. APGA will be commenting to provide PHMSA a response to their specific question concerning anticipated demand for service regulators through the NGDISM program. APGA is asking all member systems that have applied for a NGDISM grant or plan to apply to one in the future to complete a short survey by August 19, 2024. Responses to this survey will inform APGA’s comments. They may be aggregated and kept anonymous. 
View the waiver here. 

For questions on this article, please contact Erin Kurilla of APGA staff by email at ekurilla@apga.org. 

Permalink

https://www.apga.org/blogs/erin-kurilla/2024/08/15/phmsa-proposes-build-america-buy-america-waiver-fo