A U.S. appeals court on Friday, August 16, 2024, invalidated several natural gas pipeline safety standards issued by President Joe Biden’s administration after industry criticism of the enormous costs to pipeline operators, Reuters reports.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration did not adequately explain why the benefits of the revised standards outweigh their costs.
The Interstate Natural Gas Association of America had largely supported the changes, but filed suit last year to challenge five changes that PHMSA had adopted despite its objections.
These high-tech standards, which will be completed in 2022, include new requirements for operators to carry out repairs when pipeline walls thin or corrode or when cracks and dents develop.
The trade group welcomed the ruling. The agency did not respond to a request for comment.
U.S. Circuit Judge Florence Pan said in a letter to the three-judge panel that met Friday that PHMSA’s cost analysis for the new standards was inadequate, inconsistent or incomplete.
“Because the agency imposed a new safety requirement without adequately considering the associated costs, the standard cannot stand,” Pan, a Biden-appointed official, said of one of the new requirements.
The court upheld a fifth new standard that the trade group had challenged, which involved monitoring a type of pipe anomaly that occurs when corrosion and high pressure cause cracks.
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