§60141 Standards for underground natural gas storage facilities

Summary

Within 2 years after the PIPES Act of 2016 became law, the Secretary must create basic safety rules for underground natural gas storage facilities. When writing those rules, the Secretary should use existing industry consensus standards when possible, think about the costs for gas customers and avoid rules that would significantly hurt end users, and include advice from the Aliso Canyon natural gas leak task force. The Secretary may let state or local authorities help oversee these storage sites, similar to how pipeline oversight works. The new rules do not change federal pipeline rules that were already in place before the PIPES Act, do not let the Secretary pick where a storage site goes or require permission to build one, and do not affect the Secretary’s authority over storage of gases that are not natural gas.