Pipeline Safety Trust has concerns with the Final Rule in a few key areas where PHMSA has rolled back restrictions. The rule grants operators permission to use existing, old pipe, perhaps with known manufacturing issues, and provides little guidance to operators when restoring operating pressure on pipelines previously operating under a pressure reduction.
Bellingham, WASHINGTON – [Jan. 16, 2026] – With claimed cost savings to the oil and gas industry of over $450 million annually in pipe testing and replacement costs, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s (PHMSA) Class Location Change Final Rule provides a new alternative method for operators to manage their pipelines when population increases along a pipeline segment.
While the pipeline industry has suggested that cost savings from the Final Rule’s implementation will be used to inspect and ensure the integrity of these pipelines, it is also true that PHMSA is allowing pipe with known manufacturing issues into this program, asserting that modern tools can manage these issues.
Class locations, categorizations based on the population density and proximity to a pipeline, are how PHMSA determines operating pressures and the frequency and rigor of maintenance requirements applying to an individual pipeline. Stricter safety requirements can be triggered depending on a pipeline’s class location. Class locations range from locations one to four, with a Class 4 location denoting the most densely populated areas. Class locations are not static. When an area around a pipeline has an increase in population or construction of specific building types, a pipeline’s class location can change; PHMSA’s Class Location Change Final Rule provides a new method operators can use to manage these changes.
Historically, when a pipeline’s class location would change, PHMSA regulations require operators to either reduce the pipeline’s operating pressure, conduct a pressure test on the pipeline, or physically replace the segments of pipeline in question. But in the last few decades, on a very limited basis, PHMSA has granted certain operators “special permits,” regulatory waivers, allowing them to use integrity management principles and operational and maintenance measures to manage class location change instead.
The recently published Final Rule adds the approach from the special permits into the regulations and allows operators to use a combination of integrity management principles and maintenance measures to manage these class location changes for certain pipelines. Troublingly, the rule also lets operators increase pressure on pipelines that have been operating under pressure restrictions for years, without clear standards for how to do it safely. Pipelines allowed to increase their operating pressure without a new, recent pressure test and before an adequate remediation of potential defects run a real risk of leaking or even rupturing.
“Pipelines designed for rural areas weren’t built with neighborhoods in mind,” Pipeline Safety Trust Executive Director Bill Caram said. “PHMSA got some things right here, but they’ve also allowed pipe with known manufacturing problems into this program and provided weak guidance on restoring pressure to pipelines reduced years ago for safety reasons. Communities that have grown and are growing up around these pipelines deserve better.”
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About Pipeline Safety Trust: Pipeline Safety Trust is a nonprofit public watchdog promoting pipeline safety through education and advocacy by increasing access to information, and by building partnerships with residents, safety advocates, government, and industry, that result in safer communities and a healthier environment.
For More Information Contact: Kenneth Clarkson , Communications Director –
For me to be informed I would need to have information about a recent case of. Inspection. What did it do to improve the safety of the problem?