PHMSA rescinded the Biden Administration’s 2021 advisory bulletin ADB-2021-01, which stated that the 2020 PIPES Act’s section 114 obligation to update inspection and maintenance plans applied to operators of all PHMSA-jurisdictional pipeline facilities, including those not used to transport natural gas. ADB-2021-01 also identified a list of items that “[o]perators need[ed] to consider as they update their plans to comply with section 114,” including “the steps taken to prevent and mitigate both unintentional, fugitive emissions, as well as intentional, vented emissions.”
PHMSA justified rescinding this 2021 guidance by citing President Trump’s 2025 Executive Order 14219, on “Ensuring Lawful Governance and Implementing the President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ Deregulatory Initiative.” EO 14219 called on agencies to rescind or modify regulations and guidance documents “which are "based on anything other than the best reading of the underlying statutory authority,” which “impose significant costs upon private parties that are not outweighed by public benefits,” and which “impose undue burdens on small business and impede private enterprise and entrepreneurship.”