Action
Notice of intent to approve project and environmental assessment.
Summary
As part of its Congressional mandate to conduct a Risk Management Demonstration Program, the Office of Pipeline Safety (OPS) has been authorized to conduct demonstration projects with pipeline operators to determine how risk management might be used to complement and improve the existing Federal pipeline safety regulatory process. This is a notice that OPS intends to approve Natural Gas Pipe Line Company of America (NGPL) as a participant in the Pipeline Risk Management Demonstration Program. This also provides an environmental assessment of NGPL's demonstration project. Based on this environmental assessment, OPS has preliminarily concluded that this proposed project will not have significant environmental impacts. This notice explains OPS's rationale for approving this project, and summarizes the demonstration project provisions that would go into effect once OPS issues an order approving NGPL as a Demonstration Program participant. OPS seeks public comment on the proposed demonstration project so that it may consider and address these comments before approving the project. The NGPL demonstration project is one of several projects OPS plans to approve and monitor in assessing risk management as a component of the Federal pipeline safety regulatory program.