Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration January 2016 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

As required by the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21), the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration is amending the Hazardous Materials Regulations to adopt provisions contained in certain widely-used or long-standing special permits that have an established safety record. The adopted amendments are intended to provide wider access to the regulatory flexibility offered in special permits and eliminate the need for numerous renewal requests. The adopted amendments will also reduce paperwork burdens and facilitate commerce while maintaining an appropriate level of safety. PHMSA conducted an extensive analysis of all active special permits and codified, as appropriate, those special permits deemed suitable in this rulemaking.

On October 5, 2015, in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, PHMSA published a notice in the Federal Register (80 FR 60242) inviting comments on information collections titled ``Pipeline Integrity Management in High Consequence Areas Gas Transmission Pipeline Operators; Control Room Management/Human Factors; Integrity Management Program for Gas Distribution Pipelines, and Response Plans for Onshore Oil Pipelines,'' identified by Office of Management and Budget (OMB) control numbers 2137-0610, 2137-0624, 2137- 0625, and 2137-0589. These information collections will expire on March 31, 2016. PHMSA will request an extension with no change for the information collections 2137-0610, 0624, and 0625. PHMSA will request a renewal with revisions to the information collection 2137-0589 to revise the number of respondents PHMSA expected to comply with this information collection. During the 60-day comment period, PHMSA received no comments in response to these collections. PHMSA is publishing this notice to provide the public with an additional 30 days to comment on the renewal of these information collections and announce that these information collections will be submitted to OMB for approval.