Federal pipeline safety enforcement has fallen to unprecedented lows in the first few months of the Trump administration.
No enforcement actions were launched in March, the first time in the 20-year history of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration that no cases were initiated in a month. Before that, only one case was initiated in February.
The tally inched up in April, with four cases.
Those numbers are from a brief period of time. Still, the steepness of the drop raises questions about whether the Trump administration’s fervor to shrink government intervention could also mean diminished enforcement of existing safety standards.
But PHMSA officials argue that’s not a sign the agency will be less aggressive under President Donald Trump, saying their commitment to enforcement shouldn’t be judged by the first three months of a new administration.
“Enforcement numbers from the beginning of an administration as a new team transitions are not indicative of long-term trends or a lack of commitment to enforcement,” said PHMSA spokesperson Emily Wong.
But enforcement doesn’t always drop during presidential transitions. In the first three months of Trump’s first term in 2017, PHMSA filed 66 cases.
Wong also said the agency has recently closed three cases with “significant civil penalties.” That would include a $1.5 million fine paid by Freeport LNG from an explosion at its terminal south of Houston in June 2022. And the agency responded to two high-profile leaks, one on the Keystone oil pipeline in North Dakota and the other on a fuel line in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
Case closure numbers have been robust in recent months, but not at record-breaking levels. PHMSA closed 26 cases in March and 13 in April. In the past, the agency has closed as many as 61 cases in one month: September 2010. The Biden administration closed seven cases last July and 12 in December.
On average, PHMSA initiates about 18 cases per month. In Trump’s first term, it averaged a little less than that. During the Biden administration, the average was slightly higher. Since PHMSA was established in November 2004, the most enforcement actions issued in a month was 65. Until this year, PHMSA had never issued fewer than three enforcement actions in a month.
There could be other explanations for the decline, though agency officials did not offer them as reasons.
The Trump administration has been aggressively culling the federal workforce with layoffs, firings and incentives to leave. Administration officials have said that employees in critical safety roles, such as inspectors and investigators, will be retained. But there are no official numbers on how many people left PHMSA, which had about 600 employees before the cutbacks began. And there’s no public data on whether all safety-critical employees have remained.
But the senior career leadership at PHMSA was largely cleared out, including the top career pipeline safety official, Alan Mayberry. He’s one of at least eight career leaders who have left since Trump returned to the White House or are expected to leave.
Trump has nominated Paul Roberti, general counsel to PHMSA in his first term, to lead the agency as administrator. The role requires confirmation by the Senate, which has taken no action on Roberti.
The wait for a new administrator could be part of the slowdown, said Joseph Hainline, who was a PHMSA attorney before and during Roberti’s tenure.
“I think you’ll see it pick up as they get fully staffed once Paul gets there,” said Hainline, now a partner at the Van Ness Feldman firm. “I think the first couple months are always sorting through the priorities, dealing with all of the top down changes from the administration.”
The agency is currently being run by Deputy Administrator Ben Kochman, formerly director of pipeline safety policy at the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA). At PHMSA, he is serving as acting administrator. The chief counsel is Keith Coyle, a former PHMSA staff attorney who represented pipeline companies in private practice before his appointment.
Former President Joe Biden never named a full-time PHMSA administrator during his four years in office.
Whatever the reason, the recent decline in enforcement is concerning, said Bill Caram, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust, the country’s main pipeline safety advocacy group. It also raises questions about whether the agency is adequately overseeing safety, he said in an email.
“Regular, consistent enforcement helps keep our communities and the environment safe from the risks of pipelines,” Caram said, “and substantial drops from established enforcement levels deserves our close attention.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment last week. Freeport LNG declined to comment.
Keystone operator South Bow responded to a request for comment by pointing to the incident webpage for the leak. Energy Transfer, which operates the pipeline that leaked in Pennsylvania, didn’t respond to a request for comment. But one industry leader said statistics don’t always show the full breadth of an administration’s approach to enforcement.
“While any administration can juice the numbers if they want with ticky-tack enforcement actions, we hope this administration will make a difference with an enforcement program that focuses on what is really meaningful for pipeline safety,” Andy Black, CEO of the Liquid Energy Pipeline Association, said in an emailed statement.
Pipelines are an important symbol of Trump’s energy agenda. One of his first acts as president in his first term was to boost two oil pipeline projects loathed by environmentalists and left-leaning groups: Keystone XL and Dakota Access.
Trump’s top oil and gas donor in last year’s presidential election was pipeline mogul Kelcy Warren, the executive chair of Energy Transfer, which developed Dakota Access. Warren put $12.5 million, from personal funds and a company in which he has controlling interest, toward getting Trump back to the White House. Shortly after Trump took office, Energy Transfer challenged PHMSA’s in-house regulatory system in court as “unconstitutional.”
Pipeline safety enforcement civil penalties shot up after Biden succeeded Trump in 2017.
And during Biden’s term, pipelines became an increasingly contentious part of the debate over climate change as the agency drafted a regulation to crack down on natural gas emissions from pipes and other energy infrastructure. PHMSA finished the rule in the final days of Biden’s term, but the Trump administration hasn’t implemented it and isn’t expected to do so.
When asked about the scarcity of enforcement actions, INGAA — which represents operators of interstate gas transmission lines — stressed the industry’s commitment to safety.
“Safety is at the forefront of everything our members do, and our collective goal is zero incidents,” Amy Andryszak, the group’s CEO, said in an emailed statement. “This laser-like focus on safety and compliance should result in fewer enforcement actions.”
The American Petroleum Institute, a major U.S. oil and gas trade group, said in an emailed statement that the industry “remains committed to working with PHMSA to advance the safe and responsible operation of essential pipeline infrastructure that delivers affordable, reliable energy to Americans across the country.”
