On April 27, the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed a bipartisan manager’s amendment, which is a modified version of the underlying legislation that includes amendments of the Pipeline Safety Act of 2016.
Originally, the Pipeline Safety Act was passed out of the Energy and Power Subcommittee on March 16 and sent to the full Energy and Commerce Committee with a number of commitments between committee members and Chairman Upton (R-Mich.) to work on outstanding issues. These outstanding issues are detailed below and were included in the manager’s amendment.
Issues addressed by the manager’s amendment:
Emergency Order (EO) authority: The manager’s amendment clarified conditions about when the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) can issue order authority. It also imposes a notification requirement on PHMSA when the agency is going to issue EO, and strengthens the imminent hazard definition that is the condition under which an EO can be issued. APGA staff believes that EOs are not an issue for municipal systems.
Propane: The manager’s amendment added language on propane to protect against propane shortages that were experienced a few years ago.
Study on integrity management plans of oil pipelines: The manager’s amendment includes a study of integrity management plans of oil pipelines.
Cybersecurity: The manager’s amendment includes language that reaffirms PHMSA’s responsibility to consider cybersecurity with respect to liquid natural gas pipelines.
With these changes, the bill remains largely non-controversial and focuses on pushing PHMSA to issue the numerous outstanding regulations from the 2011 pipeline safety bill, improving underground storage standards, and providing direct hire authority to PHMSA to quickly fill open positions. Moving forward, the Energy and Commerce and the Transportation and Infrastructure bill must be merged into a compromise bill and then voted on by the full House. Then, the House and Senate will likely go into a conference committee to hash out a compromise between their two versions of the legislation, before the bill is sent to the President for signature or veto.
APGA will keep members apprised of any developments of pipeline safety legislation. For questions on this article, please contact Scott Morrison of APGA staff by phone at 202-464-2742 or by email at
smorrison@apga.org.