Pipeline Safety

Virtually all aspects of the energy transportation pipeline industry are regulated to some extent by federal, state, and local agencies.

The Office of Pipeline Safety (PHMSA) is the primary federal regulatory agency responsible for ensuring that pipelines are safe, reliable, and environmentally sound. From the federal level, we oversee the development and implementation of regulations concerning pipeline construction, maintenance and operation, and we share these responsibilities with our state regulatory partners.

Regulatory Perspective

The Office of Pipeline Safety has a limited number of inspectors in the field, working with our state partners to oversee over 2 million miles of pipelines. Due to this and other limitations, our past focus had to be fairly narrow in order to have any impact. We concentrated on defining and ensuring industry compliance with minimal design, operational, and maintenance practices. That regulatory approach produced a good safety record, and pipelines today are the safest, most environmentally-friendly and reliable mode of hazardous liquid and gas transportation. But pipeline accidents still happen; sometimes with profoundly tragic consequences. Therefore, we have to do better, and we will.

Looking Forward

OPS has significantly transformed itself—and the way it regulates the pipeline industry—over the last few years. We have new people in new jobs with new skills. We have written new, stricter regulations, and we are enforcing them in a tough but fair manner. These transformations are driven by one objective: to maximize the positive impact that OPS and state program people and resources have on the safety, integrity, and reliability of our nation's pipeline system.

The rules governing pipeline safety are included in Title 49 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), Parts 190-199. Individual states may have additional or more stringent pipeline safety regulations.

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