Latest news with #PHMSA
E&E News
21-05-2025
- Business
- E&E News
Trump admin seeks input on overhauling pipeline standards
U.S. pipeline regulators are kick-starting an overhaul of repair requirements for natural gas and carbon dioxide lines — and asking about how to make standards more cost-effective. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration put out a call Tuesday for public input on the agency's plans to modernize decades-old regulations for gas transmission and hazardous liquid lines. Ben Kochman, the agency's acting administrator, said federal regulations need to keep up with advancements in pipeline safety technology. The repair criteria and 'remediation timelines' for hazardous liquid and CO2 pipelines, PHMSA said, have been 'relatively static for decades.' Advertisement 'Modernizing pipeline repair requirements will encourage innovation and improve the safety and efficiency of energy infrastructure throughout the country,' Kochman said in a news release.
Miami Herald
19-05-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
Louisiana's McNeese State to be site of national center for liquefied natural gas research
May 19 (UPI) -- U.S. officials announced Monday that Louisiana's McNeese State University will be site of the federal government's new national center for liquefied natural gas safety. The university in Lake Charles was selected by officials to be the site of the "National Center of Excellence for Liquefied Natural Gas Safety" as a subsidiary part of the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. "The sheer volume of product supplied by the state of Louisiana is unparalleled and growing, and there is no better place to locate our Center of Excellence," said U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. McNeese State, the first U.S. undergraduate institution to offer a certificate program in the business of liquefied natural gas, is already the site of its own LNG Center of Excellence. It was described as a "game-changer" for the region in terms of workforce development and "groundbreaking research." "We are excited to be on the forefront of helping ensure safety and sustainability in the energy sector and look forward to working with PHMSA to develop a world-class facility to house their staff," Dr. Wade Rousse, president of McNeese State University, said Monday. 2020's Protecting our Infrastructure of Pipelines and Enhancing Safety Act, otherwise known as the PIPE Act, established the center with the aim to "enhance" the United States as the "leader and foremost expert" in LNG operations to facilitate research and development, training, regulatory coordination and to encourage development of LNG safety solutions. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., explained that in 2020 Congress passed the PIPES Act which, he claimed, "improved pipeline safety and infrastructure" in the United States as he also thanked the Trump administration. The Louisiana Republican, 73, was critical of the Biden administration's perceived "hostility" toward fossil fuel industry industry. Last year, the current president solicited $1 billion and got hundreds of millions of dollars from the oil and gas industry in the 2024 campaign while promising to roll back fossil fuel regulations in his effort to stamp out climate change policy. The U.S. Department of the Interior announced last week it had expedited oil and gas production on public land in vehement opposition to environmental experts and activists. Meanwhile, the Trump Energy Department in February signed-off on a Biden policy to permit the use of liquified natural gas as marine fuel in order to reduce LNG regulations targeting motor boats. Kennedy, who reportedly received more than $300,000 in campaign contributions via the fossil fuel industry from 2021-2022, added that as part of the legislation was language that was included to create the "first-ever" National Center of Excellence for LNG Safety in Louisiana under PHMSA, which by 2013 had marked a record number of 116 enforcement orders against American pipeline operators for various safety violations by the federal regulator. "The Center will advance LNG safety by promoting collaboration among government agencies, industry, academia, and other safety partners," stated PHMSA's Acting Administrator Ben Kochman. "Consolidating such remarkable levels of expertise," according to Kochman, will "benefit the LNG sector for many generations to come." Copyright 2025 UPI News Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Louisiana's McNeese State to be site of national center for liquefied natural gas research
May 19 (UPI) -- U.S. officials announced Monday that Louisiana's McNeese State University will be site of the federal government's new national center for liquefied natural gas safety. The university in Lake Charles was selected by officials to be the site of the "National Center of Excellence for Liquefied Natural Gas Safety" as a subsidiary part of the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. "The sheer volume of product supplied by the state of Louisiana is unparalleled and growing, and there is no better place to locate our Center of Excellence," said U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. McNeese State, the first U.S. undergraduate institution to offer a certificate program in the business of liquefied natural gas, is already the site of its own LNG Center of Excellence. It was described as a "game-changer" for the region in terms of workforce development and "groundbreaking research." "We are excited to be on the forefront of helping ensure safety and sustainability in the energy sector and look forward to working with PHMSA to develop a world-class facility to house their staff," Dr. Wade Rousse, president of McNeese State University, said Monday. 2020's Protecting our Infrastructure of Pipelines and Enhancing Safety Act, otherwise known as the PIPE Act, established the center with the aim to "enhance" the United States as the "leader and foremost expert" in LNG operations to facilitate research and development, training, regulatory coordination and to encourage development of LNG safety solutions. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., explained that in 2020 Congress passed the PIPES Act which, he claimed, "improved pipeline safety and infrastructure" in the United States as he also thanked the Trump administration. The Louisiana Republican, 73, was critical of the Biden administration's perceived "hostility" toward fossil fuel industry industry. Last year, the current president solicited $1 billion and got hundreds of millions of dollars from the oil and gas industry in the 2024 campaign while promising to roll back fossil fuel regulations in his effort to stamp out climate change policy. The U.S. Department of the Interior announced last week it had expedited oil and gas production on public land in vehement opposition to environmental experts and activists. Meanwhile, the Trump Energy Department in February signed-off on a Biden policy to permit the use of liquified natural gas as marine fuel in order to reduce LNG regulations targeting motor boats. Kennedy, who reportedly received more than $300,000 in campaign contributions via the fossil fuel industry from 2021-2022, added that as part of the legislation was language that was included to create the "first-ever" National Center of Excellence for LNG Safety in Louisiana under PHMSA, which by 2013 had marked a record number of 116 enforcement orders against American pipeline operators for various safety violations by the federal regulator. "The Center will advance LNG safety by promoting collaboration among government agencies, industry, academia, and other safety partners," stated PHMSA's Acting Administrator Ben Kochman. "Consolidating such remarkable levels of expertise," according to Kochman, will "benefit the LNG sector for many generations to come."
E&E News
16-05-2025
- Politics
- E&E News
Partisanship continues to plague pipeline safety bill
A hearing Thursday featured lingering disagreement between Republicans and Democrats over how exactly the federal government should regulate oil and gas pipelines. The Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Surface Transportation, Freight, Pipelines and Safety is one of several panels developing bipartisan legislation to reauthorize the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. Congress has failed to pass a full authorization for the agency since 2020. And the hearing suggested lawmakers may still be a long way from coming to an agreement, as Republicans and Democrats traded jabs about the agency's work under former President Joe Biden and the current Trump administration. Advertisement 'The unaccountable Biden PHMSA attempted to remake the pipeline safety agency into a climate change agency, because every agency in the federal government under Biden was a climate change agency,' said full committee Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
E&E News
12-05-2025
- Business
- E&E News
Senate panel to kick-start push on pipeline safety bill
The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee will hold a hearing this week to take the first step in renewing a long-delayed effort to get new, bipartisan pipeline safety legislation to the president's desk. The Subcommittee on Surface Transportation, Freight, Pipelines and Safety will meet Thursday to collect fresh input from industry players and advocates eager to see Congress extend the authorization for the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the federal government's chief pipeline safety regulator. 'PHMSA … plays a key role in unleashing America's energy independence and ensuring Americans have access to reliable, safe and affordable energy,' said subcommittee Chair Todd Young (R-Ind.). 'I look forward to hearing more about pipeline operations in the U.S. and ways these operations can be improved as we begin to draft a pipeline safety reauthorization bill.' Advertisement The safety agency, part of the Department of Transportation, crafts and enforces regulations for 3.3 million miles of pipeline and shipments of hazardous materials across the nation.
