Pipeline safety is not a partisan issue. It is a public safety issue, an infrastructure issue, an energy issue, and a damage prevention issue. Clearly, the U.S. Senate agrees, having unanimously passed the bipartisan PIPELINE Safety Act of 2025 on April 29. Now the U.S. House of Representatives must take up the mantle and help move the final bill to the President’s desk.
Pipelines are the nation’s primary mode of transportation for energy resources, including natural gas, crude oil, and refined petroleum products. The entire gas and hazardous liquid pipeline network stretches over 3.3 million miles in the United States, enough to circle the earth around 100 times. More freight moves across the United States by pipeline than by water, measured in ton-miles.
Protecting this sprawling network is essential, because pipelines operate quietly in the background of everyday life, but the consequences of damage can be severe. A single excavation mistake, missed locate, communication failure, or outdated safety practice can threaten workers, nearby communities, and the reliability of the energy system itself. For decades, a group of dedicated professionals has been working to prevent accidents and advance safety for underground infrastructure across the United States. This industry is called Damage Prevention, and has been crucial in the development of state laws and regulations to protect underground pipelines and other utilities. It is also partially under federal jurisdiction and guidance by PHMSA, the very agency currently operating without a congressional reauthorization for over 2.5 years.
The PIPELINE Safety Act would build upon decades of work by strengthening the federal framework for damage prevention measures and formalizing existing industry best-practices. The bill adds new criteria for state one-call programs to meet, including stronger expectations for positive response, white-lining, mapping accuracy, improved communication, and other practices that help excavators and facility operators avoid preventable damages. Damage prevention is only as strong as the systems that support it. The legislation would also support broader improvements in pipeline safety. It includes provisions related to leak detection, emergency response, pipeline integrity, safety technology, and public awareness.
Formalizing federal rules for positive response and white-lining is especially crucial. Positive Response requires utility operators to confirm whether facilities have been marked or not before excavation begins, ensuring safer excavation. White-lining requires excavators to clearly identify the planned excavation area with white lines in advance so that utility companies or locators understand where work will occur, improving both efficiency and safety. Together, these two practices have long been understood as best-practices for improving communication and reducing ambiguity, but formalizing them as federal requirements is a big step forward.
Many states already incorporate these requirements into robust state one-call programs, but Aii’s 2024 Damage Prevention Report Card found that many others states remain behind this standard. The PIPELINE Safety Act would help close this gap and give PHMSA more authority to evaluate state programs and encourage stronger practices across the country. For the damage prevention community, the bill is especially meaningful because it recognizes work that professionals have been doing for years. Excavators, locators, utility operators, one-call centers, safety advocates, and state regulators all understand that better communication saves lives.
The bill also comes at an important moment for PHMSA. Federal pipeline safety programs have gone years without a new reauthorization, even as the pipeline system, the energy sector, and the construction environment have continued to evolve. For more than 955 days, PHMSA has operated without congressional reauthorization to its pipeline safety programs. While this does not affect daily operations like a shutdown would, reauthorization gives congress an opportunity to update policy and best practices, clarify priorities and objectives, recalibrate funding, and align federal oversight with the rapidly innovating pipeline industry. The act would reauthorize PHMSA’s pipeline safety programs through fiscal year 2030, providing stability for an essential agency protecting critical infrastructure.
The Senate already passed the act unanimously, sending a clear signal to the House and the nation. The PIPELINE Safety Act is a bipartisan, practical, and safety-improving piece of legislation that should earn broad support in the House of Representatives. It strengthens federal pipeline safety policy while reinforcing the work already being done by industry stakeholders.
Still, bipartisan agreement in the Senate does not guarantee further legislative action. Even with broad bipartisan support, the process of getting the bill through the House is complicated. Aii founder Brigham McCown, a former administrator of PHMSA, said “If there is a will there is a way, when there is not, it is gridlock.”
In today’s hyper-partisan atmosphere, even practical and bipartisan infrastructure bills can get slowed down by committee boundaries and competing priorities. This same dynamic has also made it difficult to create momentum behind a 2026 Surface Transportation Reauthorization bill, another must-pass bill that may slip past its deadline like PHMSA’s reauthorization did in 2023.
The House should take up the PIPELINE Safety Act quickly and move pipeline-safety reauthorization across the finish line. Congress should not allow a broadly supported safety bill to become another casualty of political gridlock. The Senate has already shown that members of both parties can come together around stronger safety policy and damage prevention. Passing this bill would be a major step forward for pipeline safety, damage prevention, and the millions of Americans who depend on safe, reliable energy infrastructure every day.
Written by Owen Rogers, Public Policy Associate
The Alliance for Innovation and Infrastructure (Aii) is an independent, national research and educational organization working to advance innovation across industry and public policy. The only nationwide public policy think tank dedicated to infrastructure, Aii explores the intersection of economics, law, and public policy in the areas of climate, damage prevention, eminent domain, energy, infrastructure, innovation, technology, and transportation.