Sponsors (2)
The bill funds and formalizes a confidential, voluntary pipeline-incident sharing system to improve safety and inform regulators, but its strong confidentiality and statutory exemptions create real risks to transparency and enforcement while imposing modest costs.
Operators, contractors, and regulators gain a confidential voluntary incident-sharing system (the VIS) that helps them share safety lessons and remediation practices, which should improve pipeline safety and reduce future incidents.
De-identified VIS reports will inform the public and regulators about industry-wide safety trends without revealing sensitive sources, improving situational awareness for oversight and communities.
The bill establishes a multistakeholder Governing Board to provide balanced input from industry, government, and public-safety advocates, which can improve oversight and program design.
Voluntary reporting and strong confidentiality protections may limit availability of evidence for enforcement and investigations, reducing accountability for operators and potentially weakening legal remedies after incidents.
Broad confidentiality rules, FOIA exemptions, and carving the Governing Board out of the Federal Advisory Committee Act reduce transparency and public oversight, risking that negligent practices remain hidden from the public.
Creating and operating the VIS will require funding that may be borne by industry fees or taxpayers, modestly increasing costs for utilities and potentially for ratepayers or taxpayers.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Creates a confidential, nonpunitive Voluntary Information‑Sharing system for pipeline safety and a governing board to operate it, with set timelines and governance rules.
Introduced October 7, 2025 by Jerry Moran · Last progress October 7, 2025
Creates a confidential, nonpunitive Voluntary Information‑Sharing system (VIS) for pipeline safety that covers gas transmission and distribution pipelines, LNG facilities, underground natural gas storage, and hazardous liquid pipelines. The Secretary must set up the VIS within one year and the PHMSA Administrator must create a 15‑member Governing Board within 180 days to run the system. The VIS is built around a Governing Board, a Program Manager, a Third‑Party Data Manager, and Issue Analysis Teams. The bill spells out board composition (five federal/state reps, five industry reps, five public‑safety advocacy reps), term lengths, staggered appointments, co‑chairs, and reappointment limits, and requires implementation consistent with an existing Pipeline Safety voluntary information‑sharing recommendation report.