During the last week of the Obama Administration, PHMSA released a pre-publication copy of the hazardous liquid pipeline safety final rule, which has been six years in the making. The rulemaking was intended to address issues raised by several sources: high profile pipeline accidents; directives contained in amendments to the Pipeline Safety Act; and recommendations from the NTSB and GAO. The final rule would implement many significant and expansive inspection and reporting requirements, including periodic integrity assessments and leak detection for pipelines outside of high consequence areas (HCAs), inspections of pipelines after extreme weather events, expanded reporting, and more stringent integrity management repair and data collection requirements.
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Regulatory Freeze
Regulatory Freeze issued by New Administration
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On the first day of the new Trump Administration, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus issued a Memorandum to the heads of all Executive Departments and Agencies, requesting that all federal agencies suspend transmittal of any new proposed or final rules to the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) until the new Administration’s Agency appointees have an opportunity to review such proposals. The Memo also asks all agencies to “immediately withdraw” any proposed or final regulations that have been sent to the OFR but not yet published in the Federal Register (there is always at least a several day delay between the time that new rules are sent to OFR and then published in the Federal Register). In addition, the Memo requests that Agencies postpone the effective date (by at least 60 days) of any rules that have been published in the Federal Register but have not yet become effective.
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