Pipeline Safety

An Experienced Team to Help You Manage Compliance

As part of Van Ness Feldman’s long-standing federal regulatory counseling of pipelines in managing their systems and achieving their business objectives, the firm provides a full range of pipeline safety services, including:  strategic counseling, interpretive guidance on day-to-day regulatory compliance questions, review of compliance plans, preparing rulemaking comments, representation in enforcement matters and litigation, developing regulatory strategies for the use of new materials and technologies, assisting with special permit applications and implementation, and legislative counseling. 

The firm’s practice is anchored by attorneys with long-standing pipeline safety expertise, including a former Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) attorney.  Combining Van Ness Feldman’s PHMSA expertise and former regulator perspective with the firm’s established pipeline industry knowledge and experience equips us to help operators develop and implement safety programs that satisfy PHMSA’s requirements and compliance expectations.   

PHMSA is charged with ensuring the safe operation of the nation’s extensive network of pipelines that transport gas, hazardous liquids (including crude oil and petroleum products) and CO₂, and has adopted minimum pipeline safety standards that apply to interstate and intrastate gas and hazardous liquid pipelines, including gas distribution systems.

The Pipeline Safety Laws and PHMSA’s implementing regulations are comprehensive.  They address the design, construction, operation, maintenance, and inspection of pipeline facilities and specify requirements for, among other things, corrosion control, integrity management, control room management, pressure testing, public awareness and damage prevention programs, and recordkeeping.

Federal safety standards also apply to intrastate gas facilities and gas distribution companies.  In most states, the state regulatory agency implements and enforces these requirements.  States also can, and often do, require pipeline operators to comply with additional safety requirements.  Some states also regulate intrastate hazardous liquids pipelines.

New Legislation has Created New Priorities for PHMSA and the Industry 

Enacted in January 2012, the Pipeline Safety, Regulatory Certainty, and Job Creation Act of 2011 amends the Pipeline Safety Laws and affects operators of almost all types of facilities, including gathering lines, hazardous liquid lines, gas transmission pipelines, and local distribution systems.  Under the 2011 Act, PHMSA must re-examine many of its regulations, and as appropriate, revise, expand, and strengthen them.  Van Ness Feldman has created a chart describing the Act’s requirements and PHMSA’s implementation deadlines.  Key provisions of the new legislation:

• Double DOT’s civil penalty authority
• Prohibit exemptions for government and contract excavators from state one-call notification (i.e., damage prevention) requirements
• Authorize DOT to require automatic or remote controlled valves on new pipelines, if appropriate, where economically, technically and operationally feasible
• Require DOT to evaluate and report to Congress on whether to expand integrity management requirements and whether such expansion would mitigate the need for class location designations for gas transmission lines, and authorize DOT to issue new regulations, if necessary, after a multi-year review period
• Require DOT to study existing state and federal regulations for onshore and offshore gathering lines (gas and hazardous liquid) and report to Congress, and authorize DOT, if appropriate, to subject offshore and Gulf of Mexico inlet hazardous liquid gathering lines to the same requirements as other hazardous liquid gathering lines
• Require gas transmission pipelines to verify pipe records for certain lines, and authorize DOT to require operators to reconfirm maximum allowable operating pressure (MAOP) for lines lacking sufficient records and take interim safety measures
• Require DOT to study hazardous liquid leak detection systems and assess whether requiring their use and establishing leak detection standards would be technically, operationally, and economically feasible, and if so, to establish such standards after a review period.

To comply with these legislative directives, PHMSA is expected to undertake various information collection and rulemaking proceedings, in addition to ongoing regulatory initiatives. 

PHMSA is Performing a Comprehensive Review of its Existing Safety Regulations 

Even before passage of the 2011 Act, PHMSA began comprehensive reviews of its gas and hazardous liquid pipeline safety regulations. In particular, PHMSA issued advance notices of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) seeking public comment on a broad range of issues affecting hazardous liquid and gas pipelines, including gas distribution pipelines. 

• Hazardous Liquid Pipelines.  In 2010, PHMSA issued an ANPRM seeking comment on wide-ranging changes that could eliminate or modify existing regulatory exemptions, broaden the scope of the integrity management regulations, impose leak detection requirements for all regulated pipelines, change valve spacing requirements and require the installation of emergency flow restricting devices, specify repair timeframes for pipeline segments not subject to the integrity management requirements and impose requirements for stress corrosion cracking.  Several of these issues also are addressed by the 2011 Act.  PHMSA is expected to initiate further rulemaking proceedings to follow up on the issues raised in the ANPRM.
• Gas Pipelines.  In a separate 2011 ANPRM, PHMSA requested comments on whether changes are needed to safety regulations affecting gas transmission lines.  PHMSA sought input on the following issues:  the definition of a high consequence area (HCA); repair criteria; data collection, validation and integration; risk modeling; applying knowledge gained through integrity management programs; assessment tool selection and use; valve spacing and remote and automatic valves; corrosion control; longitudinal weld seams; underground gas storage; management of change; quality management systems; the grandfather clause for establishing MAOP on pre-1970 lines; and gathering lines.  The timing and scope of PHMSA’s next steps will be affected by the 2011 Act, but the agency is expected to proceed with further rulemaking proceedings. 
• Excess Flow Valves.  PHMSA is considering whether to expand the excess flow valve (EFV) installation requirements to gas services other than for single-family residences.  PHMSA has issued an ANPRM posing questions on whether and how current regulations should be amended.

In addition, PHMSA has recently expanded its regulatory programs in other important ways and has begun to inspect operator compliance with the new requirements:

• Distribution Integrity Management (DIMP).  Operators of gas distribution lines were required to develop and implement written integrity management programs for their systems by August 2, 2011.  These programs must demonstrate the operator’s knowledge of its gas distribution system, identify existing and potential threats, evaluate and rank the risks associated with those threats, and implement measures to address risks. 
• Control Room Management (CRM).  Operators of gas and hazardous liquid pipelines that have a controller in a control room who monitors and controls all or part of a pipeline through a SCADA system must develop and implement control room management procedures.  The CRM program is designed to reduce risks associated with human factors and ensure that management of control room activities contributes to safe pipeline operations.  Operators were required to have CRM plans in place in August 2011.  Implementation deadlines range from October 1, 2011 to August 1, 2012.
• Low Stress Hazardous Liquids Lines. The Pipeline Inspection, Protection, Safety, and Enforcement Act of 2006 required PHMSA to adopt regulations subjecting low-stress hazardous liquid pipelines to the same standards and regulations as other hazardous liquid pipelines.  Through a phased rulemaking that was completed in 2011, PHMSA now requires that nearly all low-stress hazardous liquid lines comply with Part 195 regulations.  Implementation deadlines for these pipelines extend through 2015.

PHMSA Vigorously Enforces its Extensive Compliance Requirements

PHMSA’s regulations require that pipelines develop and implement detailed written procedures for integrity management, operations and maintenance, CRM, public education and awareness, operator qualification, damage prevention, and other activities. Pipelines must demonstrate compliance through their procedures, actions in the field, and supporting documentation of the technical bases for their decisions and actions.  Pipelines also must comply with reporting requirements.

Implementing safety compliance programs can be time-consuming and costly, but non-compliance can expose a pipeline company to enforcement and including civil and criminal litigation.

Van Ness Feldman's Pipeline Safety Services

Compliance Counseling

We provide guidance in interpreting regulatory requirements, agency guidance and policy, and help clients understand how their facilities and procedures are affected.  We partner with clients and their expert consultants in developing and reviewing written compliance procedures for all aspects of the regulations, and helping to shape and defend documentation of program compliance.  We also provide clients with strategic compliance counseling in light of their business objectives. 

New Regulatory and Policy Initiatives

We counsel clients in understanding how proposed rules may affect their operations and assist them in shaping regulatory policy through rulemaking comments.  We monitor the issuance of new regulations, initiatives and policy and notify clients of developments affecting their operations.  We also assist clients with legislative outreach and agency communications. 

Enforcement and Litigation Matters

We represent and advise pipeline owners in PHMSA enforcement actions, including notices of probable violation and notices of amendment.  We team up with our clients’ technical and field personnel to develop effective case strategies, response documents, and to develop and implement creative resolutions.  We also represent clients in civil pipeline safety litigation.

Strategies for New Technologies

We help clients develop strategies for the use of new materials and technologies.  Where necessary, we also help clients develop and advance special permit applications.  We also advise pipelines with compliance issues related to existing special permits.

Post-Incident Counseling

We provide counseling in enforcement matters that may arise in connection with pipeline incidents, including corrective action orders, safety orders and investigations.  We also assist clients with environmental compliance and enforcement matters related to incidents.

Van Ness Feldman’s pipeline safety services complement the firm’s FERC, environmental and permitting expertise, enabling us to provide clients with turn-key pipeline regulatory, policy and litigation solutions.