The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board’s (“CSB’s”) long-awaited accidental reporting rule became effective on March 23, 2020. Under the new rule, 40 C.F.R. §§ 1604.1-1604.6., owners and operators of chemical facilities must report accidental releases that result in fatalities, substantial injury, or substantial property damage over a million dollars. This requirement includes reporting of releases that result in in-patient hospitalization, even if the hospitalization is taken as a precautionary measure. As such, this rule may impose a new reporting requirement for accidental releases from certain pipeline facilities that result in injury or property damage, such as at complex facilities where there is non-transportation related storage, processing or other handling of chemical substances.
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FOIA
PHMSA Proposes Regulatory Reform Rule
By Catherine D. Little, Annie M. Cook & Mandi Moroz on
Posted in Administrative Rulemaking, Emergency Response, Integrity Management, Natural Gas, Oil, PHMSA, Policy
PHMSA is proposing regulatory reform changes to the federal pipeline safety regulations at 49 CFR 190, 194, and 195, predominantly impacting liquid pipelines. Consistent with the Administration’s directives, the proposed revisions are intended to reduce regulatory burdens and improve regulatory clarity, without compromising safety and environmental protection. The proposed revisions were published in the Federal Register on April 16, 2020 and comments are due by June 15, 2020. These proposed changes would clarify and revise the requirements for how operators submit records to PHMSA; make important clarifications to the scope of pipelines that would require oil spill response plans; and, specific to liquid pipelines, substantially increase the property damage incident reporting threshold, allow remote monitoring of rectifier stations, and clarify integrity management guidance.
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Evolution of PHMSA Hearings: Response to Interest in Public Participation and Pre-Hearing Conferences
In a letter issued to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) and E&E News last week, PHMSA’s new Chief Counsel Paul Roberti announced its intention to publicly post advance notice of hearings requested by operators. As reported by E&E News and reflected in the letter, PHMSA will now post hearing scheduling letters…
PHMSA Opens Enforcement Hearing to the Public
In a surprising turn of events this week, PHMSA approved a request from the media to attend a hearing in the Agency’s Southwest Region offices in Houston yesterday. An environmental reporting service (E&E News) submitted a request to PHMSA last week to attend a hearing requested by Cheniere, in response to an enforcement action related to an incident at that company’s LNG export facility, and threatened legal action after receiving no response to their request. [See E&E News March 16, 2018 article E&E News seeks open PHMSA hearing on Cheniere leaks and E&E News March 21, 2018 article Pipeline regulators open Sabine Pass safety hearing.] In agreeing to the request just days before the Hearing, PHMSA’s Associate Administrator for Pipeline Safety Alan Mayberry was quoted by E&E News as stating that “PHMSA has decided for purposes of this hearing to open the hearing to the press and to members of the public.” Although the hearing yesterday was open to the public at the outset, it was later closed following a break. To date, PHMSA administrative enforcement hearings have been closed to the public. While this does not likely signal an official policy change on behalf of the Agency, it nonetheless suggests that PHMSA could make the decision to open administrative enforcement hearings to the public in the future, on a case by case basis.
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