Agency Seeks Comments on Pipeline Reporting Forms
Published Date: 6/18/2026
Notice
Summary
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) wants to update the forms pipeline companies use to report accidents and yearly info about gas and hazardous liquid pipelines. They’re asking for public feedback by August 17, 2026, to make sure the new forms are clear and useful. These changes help keep pipelines safer without adding extra costs or delays.
Analyzed Economic Effects
7 provisions identified: 4 benefits, 2 costs, 1 mixed.
Operators: Major reporting burden cut
PHMSA proposes removing many fields from annual, incident, and accident forms to reduce operator paperwork and duplication. Examples include removing time zone and daylight savings fields, zip code fields, granular fatality/injury subcategories, NRC timestamp fields, non-overnight hospitalization fields, and reserving Part G (unaccounted for gas) for gas distribution annual reports.
New material-specific reporting required
PHMSA proposes new annual reporting for certain high-risk materials: operators must report mileage of 'PE Brittle-Like' distribution mains and services (as defined in Advisory Bulletin 07-01, Sep. 6, 2007), and report cast- and wrought-iron pipelines six inches or less in diameter plus counts for PVC and ABS where relevant.
New corrosion and CP metrics required
PHMSA proposes adding technical corrosion-related fields to incident/accident forms, including stray current density (mA/cm2), cathodic protection (CP) potentials and criteria (on/off potentials), and the location of corrosion coupons. These will appear in amended Part G1/E and related sections.
Data changes aimed at better safety analysis
PHMSA states that the proposed form changes are intended to improve pipeline safety by ensuring that information collected is necessary, less duplicative, and more useful for risk-based, data-driven safety decisions. PHMSA expects improved ability to analyze causes and consequences of incidents.
Remove anomaly counts from Part F
PHMSA proposes removing the requirement to report the number of 'anomalies' identified and excavated in Part F of annual reports, relying instead on the number of conditions repaired. This applies to gas transmission, hazardous liquid, and other relevant annual reports.
Use NPMS as single source for diameter and tanks
PHMSA proposes removing annual report Parts that duplicate National Pipeline Mapping System (NPMS) attributes: pipeline diameter reporting (Part H) and breakout tank interstate/intrastate designations (Part M) will be moved to NPMS submissions and PHMSA will generate tabular outputs from NPMS.
Standardized contributing-factor categories
PHMSA proposes replacing overlapping, inconsistent lists of incident contributing factors in Parts J/K with a single standardized list (for example: Communication/Planning, Construction Practices, Control Room Operations, Leak Detection, Manufacturing Defect, Training, etc.) and requiring operators to select all that apply.
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