Coalition Statement on Administration’s Issuance of Additional CO₂ Pipeline Safety Regulations 

The US Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) will issue a proposed rulemaking for additional CO₂ pipeline regulations. This statement on the proposed rules may be attributed to Jessie Stolark, executive director of the Carbon Capture Coalition (the Coalition). The Coalition is a non-partisan collaboration of more than 100 companies, labor organizations, and non-profits building policy support for carbon management technologies.   

“The Coalition welcomes the issuance of proposed rules for updated CO₂ pipeline regulations from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). These rules, once finalized, will strengthen regulatory certainty for project developers who must comply with the existing safety regime for the nations’ CO₂ pipelines. The Coalition has long-supported rigorous safety design, inspection, and maintenance protocols associated with carbon capture, transport, and storage infrastructure. PHMSA already has robust required safety programs that CO₂ operators must follow. The Coalition supports the implementation of common-sense steps to ensure these projects can safely scale, responsibly, and with urgency. To that end, the Coalition’s 2023 Federal Policy Blueprint details a comprehensive and targeted set of measures policymakers should take to ensure these transport and storage networks are designed, constructed, and maintained at rigorous standards delivering the highest levels of reliability and safety.  

“Safety data reported by PHMSA shows that CO₂ pipelines have been and can be operated at the highest level of safety by best-practice operators. Currently, 50 operating CO₂ pipelines span over 5,000 miles, with individual pipelines safely transporting millions of tons of CO₂ annually over hundreds of miles and across entire regions of the country. Since reporting began, these pipelines have had an excellent safety record that easily surpasses other essential energy infrastructure, such as electric transmission and distribution systems. However, a rare but serious pipeline failure in Satartia, Mississippi, in 2020 has increased public and policymaker concerns about pipeline safety and the overall reliability of these systems as they scale. This incident and subsequent increased attention prompted PHMSA to draft updated regulations to safeguard these infrastructure systems and the local communities that host them.  

“A substantial build-out of CO₂ pipeline infrastructure is necessary to transport large quantities of CO₂ from industrial facilities, power plants, and direct air capture facilities to points of reuse or permanent geologic storage. This build-out is an essential part of a broader, comprehensive strategy to deploy carbon management technologies across domestic industries, secure US technology leadership, and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. For that to occur, there must be full public and policymaker confidence in the safety of CO₂ pipelines and assurance that appropriate regulations and protocols are in place and enforced to prevent future incidents. The Coalition looks forward to reviewing the proposed rules and working with the incoming administration to finalize these rules in a timely manner.” 

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Convened by the Great Plains Institute, the Carbon Capture Coalition is a nonpartisan collaboration of more than 100 companies, unions, conservation and environmental policy organizations, building federal policy support to enable economywide, commercial scale deployment of carbon management technologies. This includes carbon capture, removal, transport, utilization, and storage from industrial facilities, power plants, and ambient air.