DC appeals court tosses Biden administration pipeline safety rules

A Washington appeals court on Friday ordered the Biden administration to rewrite sweeping new pipeline safety rules issued in 2022.

In a unanimous decision, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled against the most recent standards finalized by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

In its ruling, siding with the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA), the court invoked the governing statute for the agency, the Administrative Procedure Act, which requires the regulations to conduct a cost-benefit analysis for new rules. Writing for the majority, Judge Florence Pan, an appointee of President Biden, said the government’s cost-benefit analysis did not properly lay out why the benefits exceed the cost, the main source of the trade group’s objection.

"We agree with INGAA that the agency failed to adequately explain why the benefits of the final standards outweigh their costs," Pan wrote. "Because the agency imposed a new safety requirement without properly addressing the costs of doing so, the standard cannot stand." In another of the rule’s standards, she wrote, “the agency’s reasoning fails because it neglected to analyze the costs altogether.”

The Biden administration standards, which took effect in May 2023, imposed new regulations for pipeline operators to protect against corrosion or cracks. The appeals court allowed one of five standards, governing monitoring of pipes for certain types of stress damages, to remain in place.

The newer rules finalized a decade-long process that began after the September 2010 rupture of a natural gas pipeline in San Bruno, Calif., which killed eight people and injured dozens more. In 2022, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the updated rule would “significantly improve safety and environmental protections for our nation’s natural gas pipeline system, which will help save lives, avoid costly disruptions to gas service, and strengthen our supply chains."

The Hill has reached out to the Transportation Department for comment.