[00:00:01] Speaker 05: Chase number 22-1148, GPA in Extreme Association and American Petroleum Institute Petitioners versus United States Department of Transportation and Flight Line and Passengers Material Safety Administration. [00:00:15] Speaker 05: Mr. Cole for the petitioners, Ms. [00:00:16] Speaker 05: Mohan for the respondents. [00:00:22] Speaker 00: Good morning, Your Honors. [00:00:23] Speaker 00: May it please the court. [00:00:25] Speaker 00: My name is Keith Coyle, and I'm appearing on behalf of the petitioners, GPA Extreme Association, and the American Petroleum Institute. [00:00:33] Speaker 00: I would like to reserve two minutes for rebuttal. [00:00:37] Speaker 00: Public safety is never served by failing to follow the law, and respondents failed to follow the law in two fundamental respects. [00:00:45] Speaker 00: First, respondents acted contrary to law. [00:00:49] Speaker 00: In 2012, Congress added a specific rulemaking provision to the pipeline safety [00:00:55] Speaker 00: regarding the use of rupture mitigation belts, and Congress limited that provision to transmission pipeline facilities. [00:01:03] Speaker 00: Gathering pipeline facilities are not transmission pipeline facilities, and respondents cannot use their general rulemaking authority to say otherwise. [00:01:12] Speaker 00: Second, respondents fail to comply with the procedural requirements in the pipeline safety [00:01:19] Speaker 00: Respondents fail to prepare an adequate risk assessment, deprive the pipeline advisory committees of the opportunity to perform their peer review function, and fail to engage in reasoned decision-making. [00:01:30] Speaker 00: For these reasons, petitioners are respectfully requesting that the court vacate the rupture mitigation valve requirements for gathering lines in the final rule. [00:01:39] Speaker 00: I welcome the court's question. [00:01:43] Speaker 02: In your brief, I think you said vacate and sever, is that right? [00:01:48] Speaker 00: Yes, sever the rupture mitigation valve requirements for gathering lines from the remainder. [00:01:53] Speaker 02: Sever them where? [00:01:56] Speaker 02: From what? [00:01:57] Speaker 00: I think the way that that would have to work is the court would have to declare that the rupture mitigation valve requirements for gathering lines were unlawfully promulgated and then send the matter back to the agency to make appropriate changes to the rule in a subsequent process. [00:02:13] Speaker 02: So really just a two? [00:02:14] Speaker 02: A declaratory judgment on that? [00:02:16] Speaker 00: That's correct. [00:02:17] Speaker 00: Yes. [00:02:18] Speaker 02: Although I'm not sure why a remit. [00:02:23] Speaker 00: Obviously, if the court were to declare those null and void, then by operation of law, I guess the agency could leave the rules on the books if the court had made them. [00:02:32] Speaker 02: They can always do it again. [00:02:34] Speaker 00: Yeah. [00:02:35] Speaker 02: There's nothing, unlike most cases of your case here, there's nothing in the record that can just be massaged or supplemented. [00:02:43] Speaker 02: I mean, there's nothing, basically. [00:02:46] Speaker 00: I think that, I think that's correct. [00:02:48] Speaker 00: We think that the agency, if you look at the key technical study that's formed a found basis for this entire rulemaking, the 2012 study by Oak Ridge, agency didn't consider gathering lines at all. [00:02:59] Speaker 00: And then eight years later, when they issued the proposed rule, preliminary regulatory impact analysis and draft environmental assessment, no references to gathering lines at all. [00:03:09] Speaker 03: You're not doubting that they have the authority to regulate the gathering lines, are you? [00:03:13] Speaker 00: I'm not in the general sense. [00:03:16] Speaker 03: In the specific sense of rupture? [00:03:19] Speaker 00: I think the way that the statute is intended to operate is the agency needs to address the specific mandate in subsection and first. [00:03:28] Speaker 00: I think they can do that in either two ways. [00:03:30] Speaker 00: I think they can issue a final rule as they did here that applies rupture mitigation above requirements to gathering lines. [00:03:36] Speaker 00: Or I think the agency could have relied on the if appropriate clause in subsection N, if they had looked at the data that came back from Oak Ridge, say they'd done a study of all pipelines, not just transmission. [00:03:49] Speaker 00: Data comes back from Oak Ridge, agency looks at the general rulemaking factors and says, we think this is more appropriate to be handled under our general rulemaking authority. [00:03:58] Speaker 00: I think they could have done that, but I don't think they did it here. [00:04:01] Speaker 00: I think the agency just proceeded under subsection N. And then I think, essentially, at the 11th hour, they tried to bring gathering lines into this rulemaking process without any adequate legal foundation for doing so. [00:04:14] Speaker 03: So the notice of proposed rulemaking was deficient, as far as you're concerned. [00:04:17] Speaker 03: There's no natural outcome. [00:04:19] Speaker 03: Is that the heart of your argument? [00:04:21] Speaker 03: Because they certainly have the authority, right? [00:04:24] Speaker 00: Yes, Your Honor, I'm not making a logical outgrowth argument in the sense that the rulemaking language that they propose couldn't apply to gathering. [00:04:32] Speaker 00: We knew that. [00:04:33] Speaker 00: When we submitted comments, we said to the agency, wait a minute, you guys just put rule texts on the books that if you read it through the cross-reflexing, it could apply to our clients. [00:04:43] Speaker 00: But there's nothing else in the record to show that's what you meant to do. [00:04:46] Speaker 00: The study that you commissioned didn't mention gathering lines. [00:04:50] Speaker 00: Nothing else in that rulemaking proposal mentioning scatter. [00:04:54] Speaker 03: Wait, wait, what are you saying on natural outgrowth? [00:04:56] Speaker 03: It is or is not a natural outgrowth. [00:04:58] Speaker 03: The notice of proposed rulemaking either gave provided natural, the end rule was either a natural outgrowth of that notice of proposed rulemaking or not. [00:05:09] Speaker 00: So just to clarify, we're not saying that the rule text that the agency put on the books couldn't have been applied together. [00:05:18] Speaker 00: We knew that. [00:05:18] Speaker 00: We can see that. [00:05:20] Speaker 00: What we're saying is everything else that goes into the rulemaking process that the agency was supposed to do, they didn't do in developing that rule. [00:05:27] Speaker 00: And they didn't cure it after they issued the proposed rule. [00:05:31] Speaker 00: They presented the rule to the pipeline advisory committees without the adequate supporting. [00:05:36] Speaker 03: So you're saying I'm just trying to understand your theory. [00:05:38] Speaker 03: You're saying that maybe there was notice in a minimal way. [00:05:43] Speaker 03: But in proceeding with the rulemaking, they did not then create a record that would support the regulation of gathering law. [00:05:52] Speaker 03: That's your argument. [00:05:53] Speaker 00: I think that's correct. [00:05:54] Speaker 00: And also, we didn't. [00:05:54] Speaker 03: You think that's correct? [00:05:55] Speaker 03: No, I really need to understand. [00:05:57] Speaker 03: But I want to know what your theory is. [00:05:59] Speaker 00: My theory is this, Your Honor, just to clarify. [00:06:02] Speaker 00: Even if the proposed rule tax that was in the NPRM could be read as applying to gathering, there was nothing else that the agency did up to that point to support the proposal. [00:06:12] Speaker 03: No, no, wait. [00:06:13] Speaker 03: I'd rather say it my way just so that I can think this through. [00:06:15] Speaker 03: You're saying that you're not going to go natural outgrowth. [00:06:22] Speaker 03: See, we would lose if we went that way. [00:06:23] Speaker 03: I think that's correct. [00:06:24] Speaker 03: Okay. [00:06:25] Speaker 03: What we are saying is, okay, we have some notice that maybe gathering could be involved, but they never supported it during the course of the rulemaking with a record that would support [00:06:35] Speaker 03: regulation gather. [00:06:37] Speaker 03: Is that what you're saying? [00:06:38] Speaker 00: Yes, you said that much better than I do. [00:06:40] Speaker 03: I don't know if it's better, but at least I understood it. [00:06:43] Speaker 00: That was the point I was trying to make. [00:06:45] Speaker 00: If we're talking about, did the language give us notice? [00:06:49] Speaker 00: Yes, I think. [00:06:50] Speaker 00: And we need that because we submit a comment saying, wait a minute, this language could apply to us. [00:06:55] Speaker 00: And we also said, nothing else in this rule suggests you want to apply this to gathering. [00:07:00] Speaker 00: So you don't have a technical foundation. [00:07:01] Speaker 00: You didn't do a cost analysis. [00:07:03] Speaker 03: So this is not about agency authority. [00:07:05] Speaker 03: It's about agency did not exercise its authority in the way that could reach gathering. [00:07:12] Speaker 00: But do you think on the agency authority question, we're also making this argument, which is, in order for the agency to apply these rupture mitigation valve requirements to gathering lines, they needed to satisfy subsection N first. [00:07:25] Speaker 00: And there were two ways they could do that. [00:07:27] Speaker 00: They could issue a final rule that included just requirements for transmission lines and rupture mitigation valves. [00:07:32] Speaker 00: Or if they wanted to exercise that if appropriate clause in the specific subsection N, they could have made that [00:07:40] Speaker 00: That would have been final agency action. [00:07:42] Speaker 00: It had been subject to review. [00:07:43] Speaker 00: It would have had discretion. [00:07:45] Speaker 00: And they would have put the world on notice. [00:07:47] Speaker 00: Hey, look, we're going to use our general rulemaking authority here. [00:07:50] Speaker 00: Everything's on the table. [00:07:52] Speaker 00: And we're also not disputing now that they've issued the regulations required by subsection. [00:07:57] Speaker 00: And I think they can use their general rulemaking authority tomorrow to go out and do a rule. [00:08:02] Speaker 00: We think that that is a one and done rulemaking provision. [00:08:05] Speaker 00: Once the terms are satisfied, the agency can exercise whatever legal authorities are appropriate. [00:08:11] Speaker 00: We just think they had to follow the process and that they didn't follow the process here. [00:08:16] Speaker 01: But are specific gathering lines similar to the transmission lines? [00:08:20] Speaker 00: I think that depends on the question that you're asking. [00:08:22] Speaker 00: Do certain gathering lines share the same risk profile as transmission lines? [00:08:26] Speaker 00: Yes. [00:08:27] Speaker 00: Certain distribution lines share the same risk profile as transmission lines as well. [00:08:33] Speaker 00: But that's asking and answering the wrong question from our perspective. [00:08:37] Speaker 00: Congress wanted the agency to look at the economic feasibility, operational feasibility, technical feasibility. [00:08:43] Speaker 00: And those aren't generalized questions about, are there comparable risks? [00:08:48] Speaker 00: They would have written a different statute if that was the question. [00:08:51] Speaker 00: What they asked them to look at was, is it feasible? [00:08:55] Speaker 00: Is it technical? [00:08:55] Speaker 00: Is it economic? [00:08:57] Speaker 00: And that's why they commissioned this study by O'Grish back in 2012, was to give them the data on that question that they needed to make a judgment about how to proceed with the rulemaking. [00:09:06] Speaker 00: And again, there was no analysis of gathering lines in that study, which, from our perspective, that is the foundational study that they're using for this role. [00:09:17] Speaker 00: And there's no mention of gathering lines. [00:09:20] Speaker 02: As I read the objections, what are the points that you're making about what's missing? [00:09:25] Speaker 02: They all, I may be wrong about this, they seem to go, [00:09:29] Speaker 02: All to the economic feasibility, not operation. [00:09:32] Speaker 00: So I don't know that that's that's that's not correct. [00:09:35] Speaker 00: I mean, at this point, the record doesn't really we don't have a record on some of these operational and technical issues because the agency never looked at it. [00:09:42] Speaker 00: But we do point out some of the economic concerns. [00:09:46] Speaker 00: We also have very significant. [00:09:47] Speaker 02: Did you just agree with me then or not? [00:09:50] Speaker 00: No, yes, definitely. [00:09:50] Speaker 00: We have concerns on the economic issues. [00:09:52] Speaker 02: I don't think I'll give me an example of [00:09:54] Speaker 02: with an operational concern that's mentioned in your brief. [00:09:57] Speaker 00: Sure. [00:09:57] Speaker 00: So the way that this final rule applies, it applies on a very segmented basis. [00:10:02] Speaker 00: We provided some evidence on that in our declaration. [00:10:05] Speaker 00: So you can have very short segments of regulated gathering lines, as short as 26 feet, that need to be protected by these rupture mitigation valves. [00:10:15] Speaker 00: And then you can have long spaces in between. [00:10:17] Speaker 00: Gathering lines operationally are very different than transmission lines. [00:10:22] Speaker 00: They vary significantly in diameter. [00:10:24] Speaker 00: They're pulling oil and gas off of various production wells. [00:10:28] Speaker 00: Flows can change. [00:10:29] Speaker 00: Pressures can change. [00:10:31] Speaker 00: The product that they're transporting is not purity. [00:10:33] Speaker 02: I don't remember that in the product that they're [00:10:36] Speaker 02: transporting could be variable? [00:10:38] Speaker 02: Is that mentioned in the brief? [00:10:41] Speaker 00: These issues, I think our point on this is, these are issues that the agency needs to look at before they do a final roll and stuff. [00:10:49] Speaker 00: And they haven't done that yet. [00:10:51] Speaker 02: Well, as you said, your declarations deal with what looks to me like the economic point because of the segmentation. [00:10:58] Speaker 02: And so one of the declarations lists eight or nine lengths of a single pipeline. [00:11:07] Speaker 02: which, when added up together, come to 1.02 miles. [00:11:13] Speaker 02: There would be nine valves in a space of 1.02 miles. [00:11:17] Speaker 02: It seems to me to support the claim that their figures on cost are totally unrelated to reality. [00:11:26] Speaker 02: It doesn't tell me anything about operations. [00:11:29] Speaker 00: Yeah, I think on the operational side, one of the other points that we make is so on valve usage rates and the agency's final regulatory impact analysis, they assume the gathering line operators use these rupture mitigation valves at the same rates as transmission line operators. [00:11:46] Speaker 00: There's no support for that. [00:11:48] Speaker 00: And one of the reasons that we see more deployment of rupture mitigation on transmission is because the agency has required those valves to be considered since the 2000s. [00:11:56] Speaker 00: So we have 20 years of experience under the rules. [00:12:00] Speaker 00: Agency didn't account for that in the final analysis. [00:12:03] Speaker 02: Wait, you mean transmission side? [00:12:04] Speaker 00: Transmission side, correct. [00:12:06] Speaker 00: So on the gathering side, and look, if you go through the final analysis, you won't find a single project involving a gathering line. [00:12:15] Speaker 00: They only focus on projects involving transmission lines. [00:12:18] Speaker 00: A lot of them are transmission lines regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. [00:12:23] Speaker 00: Those are regulated as public utilities for economic purposes. [00:12:27] Speaker 00: We are not. [00:12:28] Speaker 00: Gathering lines are generally not subject to public utility regulation, so there's a different cost recovery structure. [00:12:34] Speaker 02: None of that— The regulated lines were excluded. [00:12:38] Speaker 02: I'm sorry? [00:12:38] Speaker 02: Were the regulated lines excluded from the coverage of the rule? [00:12:42] Speaker 00: Certain regulated gathering lines were brought into this role. [00:12:48] Speaker 00: But again, there's no analysis of how are these provisions going to affect this very different sector of the industry. [00:12:55] Speaker 00: And there are hundreds of thousands of miles of gathering lines, same as there are transmission lines, historically subject to different regulation by PHMSA, historically subject to different economic regulation. [00:13:07] Speaker 00: And we have no consideration of those issues in the final regulatory agreement. [00:13:11] Speaker 02: Together there are differences regarding stress levels. [00:13:15] Speaker 00: Operationally there can be distinctions. [00:13:17] Speaker 00: So in some respects, and I think you'll probably hear this from the department, you know, a pipe's a pipe. [00:13:23] Speaker 00: A pipe feels stressed the same way, whether you call it a gathering line or you call it a transmission line. [00:13:28] Speaker 00: That's good as far as it goes. [00:13:30] Speaker 00: But I think operationally, [00:13:31] Speaker 00: some of the things that we talked about in terms of where they are in the sector, pulling in product from different wells, different quality types of gas, there may be sediment, there may be water. [00:13:42] Speaker 00: All of these issues affect the operation of gathering lines in ways that don't affect the operation of transit. [00:13:48] Speaker 02: But do they affect stress? [00:13:50] Speaker 02: I'm sorry? [00:13:51] Speaker 02: Are you raising them because they do affect stress levels? [00:13:55] Speaker 00: No, rupture mitigation valves do not affect the operating system. [00:13:58] Speaker 02: No, no, the variability of the product. [00:14:00] Speaker 00: I'm raising that in just in the sense of the operational challenges that come along with operating a gathering. [00:14:06] Speaker 00: You have to think about different things when you're running a gathering line and you do when you're running a transmission. [00:14:11] Speaker 00: There are there are differences in products and pressures where you're getting the oil and gas from. [00:14:16] Speaker 02: Well, I understand the relevance of pressure and understand the relevance of product. [00:14:23] Speaker 02: Maybe it doesn't matter. [00:14:24] Speaker 00: Yeah, I think there would be operational challenges with the operation of certain types of equipment when you have water, hydrocarbon liquids, other things in the gas stream or in the oil stream that might present challenges to operating certain types of equipment. [00:14:40] Speaker 00: The other thing I'll note is, again, on these automated valves, transmission has had this role for a long time, and they're supposed to look at it. [00:14:47] Speaker 00: So they have evolved control rooms that can operate these valves. [00:14:52] Speaker 00: We don't think that that same analysis would apply to the gathering sector. [00:14:55] Speaker 00: They have a very different set of players. [00:14:57] Speaker 00: Some can be very small. [00:14:59] Speaker 00: Some can be very large companies. [00:15:01] Speaker 00: But it's a big difference in terms of how the sector operates. [00:15:05] Speaker 03: Why did the advisory committee think there should be a separate rulemaking together? [00:15:10] Speaker 00: I think the advisory committee felt like we felt, that the agency had brought a proposal before it that was inadequately developed. [00:15:17] Speaker 00: And by statute, the advisory committee is not just supposed to look at the proposed rule tax, they're supposed to look at the preliminary regulatory impact analysis. [00:15:24] Speaker 02: One difference is that they thought there was a lack of notice and you're not complaining about that. [00:15:29] Speaker 00: Not in the sense of, again, just to be absolutely clear, not in the sense of the actual text of the proposal they put on the table. [00:15:37] Speaker 00: We knew that those regs could be read as applying to us. [00:15:40] Speaker 00: We didn't have notice of anything. [00:15:41] Speaker 02: Now, of course, it may be, I mean, they're talking perhaps about public, I mean, the public beyond the industry. [00:15:45] Speaker 00: I think that's correct. [00:15:46] Speaker 00: Or morning. [00:15:48] Speaker 00: our lawyers more in a general sense like this is not a developed record that's the way yes they also said to get supporting data obviously was lacking yeah and and if you're going to present a proposal to us they take their jobs very seriously this is not just their five industry members five government five public this wasn't a close call this was unanimous across the board there's a public notice problem [00:16:12] Speaker 00: And I think they felt like that this was not an adequately developed proposal for them to be asked to decide. [00:16:19] Speaker 02: So what did they estimate the number of R&Vs per year? [00:16:27] Speaker 00: I don't recall exactly what the agency estimated in terms of impact in the final regulatory impact analysis in terms of [00:16:33] Speaker 00: You know, there would be two forms of impact. [00:16:35] Speaker 00: One would be new pipelines. [00:16:37] Speaker 00: You know, if you're subject to the rule, you've got to build. [00:16:40] Speaker 00: And then they have this two miles out of five miles replacement rule. [00:16:45] Speaker 00: We had problems with that language. [00:16:47] Speaker 00: We didn't really press it too hard in the brief. [00:16:49] Speaker 00: But Congress said new or entirely replaced transmission lines. [00:16:53] Speaker 00: We think two miles out of five miles over a two-year period is a partial replacement. [00:16:57] Speaker 00: We don't think that's consistent with the statute. [00:17:00] Speaker 00: But we're not really pressing that. [00:17:03] Speaker 03: Didn't you raise, you knew that proposed rule could cover gathering, right? [00:17:10] Speaker 03: The language, yes, sir. [00:17:12] Speaker 03: And so most people, most lawyers and companies are going to be covered that way in anticipation of that possibility will offer up their concern in response to the roommate. [00:17:24] Speaker 03: Did you offer the same concerns you're raising now? [00:17:26] Speaker 03: Absolutely. [00:17:27] Speaker 03: And did the agency respond? [00:17:29] Speaker 00: We don't believe they responded adequately to our concerns. [00:17:33] Speaker 00: We identified the issues with a statutory basis for the rulemaking. [00:17:37] Speaker 03: We identified- I forget the statutory basis. [00:17:39] Speaker 03: You already said there is a statutory basis. [00:17:40] Speaker 00: Fair enough. [00:17:41] Speaker 00: Fair enough. [00:17:41] Speaker 00: On the procedural issues, we raised all. [00:17:44] Speaker 00: We said we didn't study this in the Oak Ridge technical study, no mention of gathering lines, nothing in the proposed rule in terms of analysis or explanation, nothing in the regulatory impact analysis at all. [00:17:57] Speaker 00: And again, it's just, [00:17:58] Speaker 00: You know, where we see is very important as the agency is representing to you that they always knew that this rule was going to apply to gathering. [00:18:08] Speaker 00: If they knew that, why didn't they ask Oak Ridge to look at gathering? [00:18:12] Speaker 03: No, no, wait, I want to come at it a little bit differently to make sure I'm understanding what you're saying. [00:18:17] Speaker 03: You say you knew to cover the gathering. [00:18:19] Speaker 03: You were concerned about that. [00:18:20] Speaker 03: There's no surprise to you. [00:18:22] Speaker 00: In terms of the real tax, no, no. [00:18:25] Speaker 03: So what was it [00:18:27] Speaker 03: Since you knew it could cover gathering, what was it you raised that was significantly important during the rulemaking that they failed to answer? [00:18:37] Speaker 03: What are you focusing on? [00:18:39] Speaker 03: Don't give me genera. [00:18:40] Speaker 03: What in particular, knowing gathering is likely going to be covered. [00:18:44] Speaker 03: What did you raise they did not respond to? [00:18:47] Speaker 00: The absence of consideration of gathering lines in the 2012 rupture mitigation valve study by Oak Ridge. [00:18:54] Speaker 00: That was the foundational study for the rupture mitigation valve requirements. [00:18:59] Speaker 00: They did not consider gathering lines at all. [00:19:01] Speaker 00: The agency never addressed that issue adequately in the rulemaking process. [00:19:06] Speaker 00: In the preliminary regulatory impact analysis, no analysis of gathering lines at all in terms of what the statute demands or requires. [00:19:15] Speaker 00: And they still presented all that information to the advisory committee for a vote. [00:19:21] Speaker 00: If they're right, and they could have done this under their general rulemaking authority, they could have stopped at that point. [00:19:27] Speaker 00: They could have realized that they didn't have the information they needed to present to the advisory committee, and they could have supplemented the record. [00:19:33] Speaker 00: And they didn't do that. [00:19:34] Speaker 00: They presented a proposal to the advisory committee, they asked them for a vote, and the advisory committee said, [00:19:40] Speaker 00: There's a public notice problem here because there's not a sufficient basis in the record to move forward on this rule. [00:19:46] Speaker 00: And we don't think that the agency cured any of those defects at the final rule phase of the proceeding. [00:19:51] Speaker 03: So the foundational study didn't cover them and the impact analysis. [00:19:55] Speaker 03: Those are your two concerns. [00:19:56] Speaker 03: You said you raised them and they didn't respond. [00:19:58] Speaker 03: That's correct. [00:19:59] Speaker 00: They did not adequately respond to those concerns. [00:20:01] Speaker 03: Anything else that you significantly [00:20:04] Speaker 00: raise that was not responded to by the agency that yes sir we think the agency failed to comply with the pipeline advisory committee requirements themselves um they presented an inadequate proposal for review there was a statutory requirement that they need to respond to significant comments within 90 days the agency did not do that um they said in their brief that their [00:20:27] Speaker 00: They've never done that. [00:20:29] Speaker 00: They're not required to do it. [00:20:31] Speaker 00: And even if they didn't, it's harmless. [00:20:33] Speaker 00: And we think Congress put that 90 day requirement in there so that the record would be developed contemporaneously with the rulemaking process. [00:20:40] Speaker 00: So we'd be having, you know, a discussion today based on what's in the record and not necessarily based on what's being represented. [00:20:47] Speaker 02: I think if I understand footnote 30, [00:20:55] Speaker 02: 6 at 848, correctly, the agency's anticipating that there will be one RMB required each year. [00:21:08] Speaker 00: And that might be what the agency put in the final regulatory impact analysis. [00:21:12] Speaker 02: We didn't have an opportunity to review and comment on that. [00:21:15] Speaker 02: Right. [00:21:16] Speaker 02: I mean, that's so far off of what the declarations show. [00:21:20] Speaker 02: Were those declarations submitted only in court or were they before the agency? [00:21:24] Speaker 00: No, these were just submitted for purposes of our declarations of standing. [00:21:29] Speaker 00: But we did raise the issue with respect to segmentation. [00:21:32] Speaker 00: It was raised both in our comments. [00:21:34] Speaker 00: Members of the advisory committees themselves raised the issue about concerns with applying this kind of requirement to partially regulated, widely dispersed segments of capital. [00:21:49] Speaker 04: Thank you. [00:21:50] Speaker 04: Thank you. [00:22:19] Speaker 06: We have placed the court and I'm on behalf of the U.S. [00:22:22] Speaker 06: Department of Transportation in the pipeline and hazardous materials safety administration. [00:22:27] Speaker 06: You know, I want to take a step back in response to some of the questions that petitioners address and and just robot the notion that [00:22:38] Speaker 06: Gathering lines and transmission lines are these fundamentally different types of pipelines. [00:22:43] Speaker 06: Originally, when Congress first enacted the pipeline safety laws in the 1960s and 70s, gathering lines and transmission lines were quite different. [00:22:52] Speaker 06: Gathering lines typically only went through very rural areas. [00:22:56] Speaker 06: They tended to be smaller in diameter, and they tended to operate at much lower pressures, and so didn't necessarily present the same risks that transmission lines did. [00:23:08] Speaker 06: What happened over the course of time, the population changed, the methods of extraction changed, and in the early 2000s, the agency recognized that now certain subsets of gathering lines had the same risk profiles as transmission lines. [00:23:23] Speaker 06: They passed through similarly populated areas, they had equally large diameters, they operated at equally high pressures, and thus presented the same risks if they were to rupture. [00:23:34] Speaker 03: Is that what the North's proposed room ranking said? [00:23:36] Speaker 03: We want everyone to understand we're taking transmission and gathering as being essentially the same because all the time things have changed. [00:23:44] Speaker 03: Is that what the notice said? [00:23:45] Speaker 06: Your Honor, the notice in this particular room making did not say that. [00:23:49] Speaker 03: Okay, so that is one answer to you, at least the way we normally look at agency rule makings. [00:23:56] Speaker 03: You didn't attend to something that you're now saying is fundamental. [00:24:00] Speaker 03: You didn't say we're moving on a premise, which is that gathering and transmission are essentially the same because things have changed. [00:24:07] Speaker 03: And what's your next point. [00:24:08] Speaker 06: My next point your honor is that I think this is a unique regulatory history here because you have the regulations in the early mid two thousands that went into the agency was specifically directed. [00:24:21] Speaker 06: to consider what should be a regulated gathering line based on its operational characteristics. [00:24:27] Speaker 06: And there, the agency did a very thorough rulemaking where it decided, as a default, certain subsets of these gathering lines are going to be subject to the same rules as transmission lines because of the risks that they present. [00:24:40] Speaker 02: I don't understand the petitioners as disagreeing with anything that you've just said. [00:24:45] Speaker 02: I'm not sure why we're hearing it. [00:24:48] Speaker 06: Your Honor, I was simply [00:24:50] Speaker 06: emphasizing the history, which shows that it is appropriate. [00:24:54] Speaker 02: Okay, we understand that they're now operating in a different environment or less rural and so on. [00:25:03] Speaker 02: That doesn't make them operationally similar. [00:25:06] Speaker 02: In fact, you didn't say it did. [00:25:07] Speaker 02: You say it creates a similar risk profile, which is true with regard to population density and so on, but not necessarily with regard to operations or economics. [00:25:19] Speaker 06: Your honor, in terms of operational characteristics, I think that's where factors like diameter and operating pressure come in, and those are similar as to these subsets of gathering lines. [00:25:29] Speaker 02: I think there's a lot of question raised and not addressed about the similarity of the stress factors. [00:25:40] Speaker 02: I think what we see is that some gathering pipelines have stress level that could be as high as that of transmission lines. [00:25:49] Speaker 02: but no information at all about the distribution of the frequency of such things. [00:25:54] Speaker 02: We thought it could be outliers. [00:25:56] Speaker 02: We don't know, and I think you don't know. [00:25:58] Speaker 06: Your honor, I would just say the way that type A, so taking gas as an example, the way type A gas gathering lines are defined is that they have operating pressures of over- Greater than 20%, is it? [00:26:09] Speaker 02: Exactly, which is what transmission lines- A greater than 20% could be 90% or 30%, right? [00:26:15] Speaker 02: It could be, but- Okay, well, I can give you a graphic on this if you want me to hold it up. [00:26:20] Speaker 02: It's pretty easy to see, find it. [00:26:25] Speaker 02: The overlap between two normal distribution curves may be quite modest. [00:26:32] Speaker 02: It's like a Venn diagram. [00:26:35] Speaker 06: Your honor, I'm not sure about the specifics of the diagram, but I think my only point was that transmission lines tend to operate at that 20% or higher threshold, and so did this subset of gathering lines. [00:26:47] Speaker 02: But that doesn't make them similar. [00:26:49] Speaker 06: It does. [00:26:50] Speaker 06: So I guess there are two. [00:26:51] Speaker 02: I have a lovely, homely example that my blog clerk [00:26:56] Speaker 02: He and LeBron James are both over six feet. [00:27:01] Speaker 02: So they're similar, right? [00:27:04] Speaker 02: In no important respect are they similar. [00:27:07] Speaker 02: It's just statistically true that they're both over six feet. [00:27:11] Speaker 02: And one is not qualified to play in the NBA as a result of being over six feet. [00:27:17] Speaker 02: So if the transmission lines are operating at more than 20%, [00:27:21] Speaker 02: that pressure statistics, and the, pardon me, the gathering lines are, and the transmission lines are at 80%, they're not really similar. [00:27:33] Speaker 06: Your honor, I think that when the agency conducted these rulemakings in the early 2000s, where it defined these subsets of pipelines, it examined the characteristics that are important in terms of thinking of similarity of risk profiles. [00:27:48] Speaker 02: And one of them was stress level. [00:27:50] Speaker 06: Yes. [00:27:51] Speaker 02: And that didn't produce the evidence to support a conclusion of any sort about stress levels in gathering pipelines. [00:28:00] Speaker 02: It may end up on close inspection that they are similar in respect, that everyone's operating roughly at 25% say. [00:28:08] Speaker 02: But we don't know that. [00:28:10] Speaker 02: And the petitioners have pointed that out. [00:28:13] Speaker 03: Your honor, I think we know that... The gathering was important foundational study, right? [00:28:19] Speaker 06: Your Honor, what the Oak Ridge study did was it examined hypothetical pipelines of different diameters. [00:28:25] Speaker 03: But not gathering. [00:28:27] Speaker 06: And different pressures. [00:28:28] Speaker 06: Well, it was just looking at sort of a generic pipeline of different pressures and different diameters. [00:28:34] Speaker 06: And it examined the potential consequences of rupture. [00:28:37] Speaker 02: Well, but it said it was looking at generic transmission lines, right? [00:28:42] Speaker 02: So we don't know whether that means that's just as good as looking at gathering lines. [00:28:49] Speaker 02: And the impact analysis did not include gathering, right? [00:28:53] Speaker 06: The preliminary risk assessment lacked mileage data on gathering lines, which the agency added as a kind of part of the final assessment. [00:29:02] Speaker 06: It did have incident report data from gathering lines, and the Kiefner study went into examination of incidents and ruptures on gathering lines. [00:29:10] Speaker 03: And the advisory committee said, we don't know what you're talking about in gathering, right? [00:29:15] Speaker 03: Yeah, think about what we're looking at as a court. [00:29:18] Speaker 03: It's very strange when an agency gets alerts of the sort that the agency had over so many years and they ignore them because it's so simple for the agency to say, okay, let's do a supplemental because people are getting all agitated about gathering. [00:29:34] Speaker 03: We're definitely have the authority cover gathering. [00:29:37] Speaker 03: We're going to do it. [00:29:39] Speaker 03: What do you need? [00:29:40] Speaker 03: We'll give it to you now. [00:29:41] Speaker 03: I couldn't comprehend it when I prepared this case why the agency wouldn't have fixed a very obvious problem. [00:29:48] Speaker 06: Your agency made a reasonable decision to incorporate gathering lines within this rulemaking based on the conclusions that it reached about the similar risk profiles of different pipelines and and really it's understanding that. [00:30:06] Speaker 06: Congress was incredibly focused on pipeline safety, was focused on these incidents where there was evidence that rupture mitigation valves would have reduced the consequences. [00:30:17] Speaker 02: And those were transmission? [00:30:19] Speaker 02: Transmission. [00:30:20] Speaker 06: The San Bruno and the Kalamazoo incidents were transmission lines, but there was other incident report data from gathering lines as well. [00:30:28] Speaker 02: And what's the conclusion regarding safety coming out of Oak Ridge? [00:30:32] Speaker 06: The conclusion was that there might be site-specific factors [00:30:36] Speaker 02: That's part of it. [00:30:36] Speaker 02: Yep. [00:30:37] Speaker 02: That's right. [00:30:37] Speaker 02: That doesn't help you. [00:30:38] Speaker 06: What else? [00:30:39] Speaker 06: I was going to say, I sort of jumped ahead in answering your question. [00:30:42] Speaker 06: The conclusion in terms of safety was that, uh, there are, there can be benefits to installing these rupture mitigation valves as I, as long as they shut down within 10 minutes. [00:30:54] Speaker 02: Right. [00:30:54] Speaker 02: And the agency said, well, okay, shut down within 30 minutes, no evidence whatsoever that that will mitigate anything. [00:31:02] Speaker 02: Your honor, that was based on, there is in one sense, [00:31:05] Speaker 02: there are two examples of ruptures that were not detected for well over 30 minutes, like hours. [00:31:12] Speaker 06: Your honor, the agency based on comments from the public based on engagement with the advisory committee determined a set of rules to pair with the rupture mitigation valves that it thought would... But if the rupture mitigation valves can't, from Oak Ridge, at least as far as Oak Ridge is concerned, can't do it, [00:31:30] Speaker 02: measurable good unless they shut down within 10 minutes. [00:31:33] Speaker 02: It just isn't support for the agency's conclusion. [00:31:37] Speaker 06: Your Honor, I don't understand petitioners to be arguing that as a general matter, the overage study doesn't support the idea that rupture mitigation valves can have benefits. [00:31:47] Speaker 06: I just want to... No, no, it can have benefits. [00:31:49] Speaker 03: No, no, that's not... No, no, we're with you there. [00:31:52] Speaker 03: That's not the problem. [00:31:55] Speaker 03: It says, as Judge Ginsburg was saying, it's much more specific than that. [00:31:58] Speaker 03: You're not giving support for the inclusion of the gathering. [00:32:01] Speaker 03: It's just not there. [00:32:02] Speaker 06: Your honor, I just want to address the cost piece very quickly. [00:32:06] Speaker 06: I realize I have 13 seconds left, but if your honors will permit me. [00:32:12] Speaker 06: I want to point out that the agency did address these potential for cost-specific considerations by expressly allowing for an exemption where an installation of one of these valves would be operationally, economically, or technically infeasible. [00:32:31] Speaker 06: And it explained that in the final rule at JA 931. [00:32:34] Speaker 06: As to the segmentation issue, [00:32:38] Speaker 06: As your honor noted, these declarations were not in the record, but I just point out too that the final rule doesn't say there has to be a valve around each of those small segment. [00:32:49] Speaker 06: It allows for multiple segments within, multiple segments can occur within the maximum spacing for the valves. [00:32:58] Speaker 02: Which is what? [00:32:59] Speaker 06: Eight miles. [00:32:59] Speaker 06: Well, it depends on the class location. [00:33:01] Speaker 06: But I believe it's eight miles for class four locations, 15 miles for class three locations, 20 miles. [00:33:12] Speaker 02: When was the, when was the rule issued? [00:33:15] Speaker 02: In April of 2022. [00:33:18] Speaker 02: When did the Congress pass that statute about taking back money? [00:33:22] Speaker 06: That was in March of 2002. [00:33:24] Speaker 06: It was signed into law. [00:33:26] Speaker 02: 2002? [00:33:26] Speaker 02: I'm sorry, 2022, Your Honor. [00:33:30] Speaker 02: A few months before the final rule. [00:33:33] Speaker 06: That's right, Your Honor. [00:33:33] Speaker 02: So had the final rule not dealt with gathering pipelines and simply started over with another NPRM and gathering data, you would have lost some appropriations. [00:33:45] Speaker 02: You could have. [00:33:46] Speaker 06: I don't think so, Your Honor, because the agency could have issued the transmission line portion of the rule and complied with the mandate there. [00:33:55] Speaker 02: And what was the rush? [00:33:57] Speaker 06: There wasn't a rush, Your Honor. [00:33:58] Speaker 02: I think the agency said that was just until further delay. [00:34:02] Speaker 02: They wanted to avoid, maybe not a rush. [00:34:04] Speaker 02: Why is it so important to avoid delay? [00:34:07] Speaker 06: Your Honor, I think it was important to avoid delay because this, you know, fundamental concerns about pipeline safety and the incidents that can occur on these pipelines. [00:34:15] Speaker 02: By the way, what do you do by way of quantifying benefits? [00:34:19] Speaker 06: Sorry, Your Honor. [00:34:20] Speaker 02: What does the agency do about quantifying the benefits of this rule? [00:34:24] Speaker 02: The costs were not well-quantified. [00:34:26] Speaker 02: What about the benefits? [00:34:29] Speaker 06: So the agency had its technical studies, but it did say that it was difficult to quantify the benefits of the bull. [00:34:35] Speaker 06: Why? [00:34:36] Speaker 06: Because there are a lot of qualitative benefits. [00:34:38] Speaker 06: For example, when a gas pipeline ruptures, there's methane gas released into the atmosphere that can cause environmental damage. [00:34:48] Speaker 06: The Oak Ridge study, for example, had a difficult – it didn't contend with the cost of injuries or casualties that might be difficult to – So you think those things are unquantifiable? [00:34:59] Speaker 02: You know, the EPA is in here every month with their quantification of benefits and costs. [00:35:05] Speaker 02: They're pretty sophisticated. [00:35:06] Speaker 02: Over the years, they've been quite good at it, actually, doing exactly what your agency said was impossible. [00:35:14] Speaker 06: Your honor, I think generally agencies have some discretion to determine how to analyze costs and benefits as a part of a risk assessment. [00:35:22] Speaker 02: Well, to say there are benefits of it, but they are personal injuries, property damage, things that we can't quantify as a non-sequitur because those are things that can be quantified, if not by this agency, then by fellow agency in the government. [00:35:42] Speaker 06: Your honor, I think [00:35:42] Speaker 02: I don't know how you got this bio. [00:35:44] Speaker 02: I really must be asleep at this point. [00:35:47] Speaker 06: I can't speak to that, Your Honor, but I think I would just say the agency did a thorough analysis here of the studies and the reasonably available information it had and ultimately concluded not to pursue anymore. [00:36:02] Speaker 02: So this is enough. [00:36:05] Speaker 06: it believed the benefits of the rule justified its costs. [00:36:08] Speaker 01: If petitioners at least somewhat agreed that the specific gathering lines are similar to the transmission lines, what do you feel like they were on notice about such that they had an adequate opportunity to comment? [00:36:21] Speaker 06: Your Honor, I think they were on notice, as I understand petitioners to be conceding today, that the rule would apply to gathering lines. [00:36:27] Speaker 06: Their comments following the notice of proposed rule specifically say this rule would apply to gathering lines. [00:36:34] Speaker 06: And they also had opportunities both of the committee meetings and following the committee meetings just to submit additional comments. [00:36:45] Speaker 06: On the application to gather. [00:36:47] Speaker 01: Do you feel that you all responded to all of your comments, because that's one of the contentions that he's making. [00:36:54] Speaker 06: Yes, your honor. [00:36:56] Speaker 06: We believe that the agency responded early to all of the comments. [00:36:59] Speaker 06: It responded to the notice piece of the committee recommendation. [00:37:04] Speaker 06: And I'd just like to clarify that the committee didn't say, you know, we have decided that there was inadequate notice here and we are not going to [00:37:15] Speaker 06: recommend that the agency go forward with this rulemaking. [00:37:18] Speaker 06: They said they were going to leave it to the agency to evaluate the notice question and decide whether it felt that it should proceed. [00:37:25] Speaker 06: And the agency addressed that in pages J924, 925, and 936, 937, the final rule. [00:37:35] Speaker 06: It addressed the idea of excluding gathering lines and [00:37:40] Speaker 06: included the explanations that I that I didn't say anything specific about segmentation. [00:37:47] Speaker 06: Your honor, I didn't use the word segmentation, but that's okay to say anything about it. [00:37:53] Speaker 06: We believe the agency addressed that concern by including the site-specific exemption requirement. [00:37:59] Speaker 06: But also, I just point out that transmission lines are also regulated on a segmented basis. [00:38:05] Speaker 06: For the nature of the agency's risk-based approach to pipeline regulation is that all types of lines are subject to different regulations depending on the risks that they present. [00:38:18] Speaker 02: All or each? [00:38:22] Speaker 06: Both transition lines and gathering lines can be regulated differently, subject to different regulations, depending on, for example, the locations they pass through. [00:38:32] Speaker 02: OK, so that's specific to the location. [00:38:37] Speaker 06: That is one of the factors that influences how. [00:38:41] Speaker 02: How does that work? [00:38:42] Speaker 02: There's a regulation and they want to say this doesn't work because of the terrain. [00:38:48] Speaker 02: What do they do? [00:38:50] Speaker 06: Uh, your honor, in this specific situation for rupture mitigation valves, I think that's exactly one of the things that would be considered as a part of this exemption request process. [00:39:00] Speaker 06: Um, so one of the things that Oak Ridge study commented on was the idea that you could have a really rural area where you might not be able to have the communications technology to allow these remote valves to work. [00:39:13] Speaker 06: Uh, and so that's why the agency said, okay, in those situations, [00:39:17] Speaker 06: the operator can let us know, and we'll evaluate whether an alternate technology would be appropriate. [00:39:22] Speaker 06: And that can be terrain as well. [00:39:25] Speaker 03: I'm a little bit confused your answer to my colleague, Charles. [00:39:31] Speaker 03: Yeah, they were on notice that you might go after Gather. [00:39:35] Speaker 03: But they then clearly made it. [00:39:37] Speaker 03: And they're entitled to do this. [00:39:39] Speaker 03: They're challenging the record that you made. [00:39:42] Speaker 03: And the principal points that they're making is, I understand that you're not really [00:39:46] Speaker 03: able to overcome them. [00:39:48] Speaker 03: Gathering's not in the foundational study. [00:39:51] Speaker 03: The impact analysis really is not covering gathering. [00:39:53] Speaker 03: And the advisory committee, which they objected to us concerned about, said that you really haven't attended to gathering. [00:40:00] Speaker 03: They're different. [00:40:01] Speaker 03: Those are the three big things that appear. [00:40:04] Speaker 03: There are pieces to it. [00:40:05] Speaker 03: But as parties who were entitled to appear before the rulemaking, they were saying, yeah, we know you might do this, but you know what? [00:40:12] Speaker 03: You're not building a record. [00:40:13] Speaker 03: And I don't think you've answered them [00:40:15] Speaker 03: You have bits and pieces that you're trying to point to. [00:40:19] Speaker 03: They essentially were saying, as I'm hearing, that this is not about gathering. [00:40:25] Speaker 03: And there are some things that are different about transmission and gathering. [00:40:29] Speaker 03: And you have to attend to them. [00:40:31] Speaker 03: And you don't have it in the foundational study. [00:40:33] Speaker 03: You don't have it in the impact analysis. [00:40:35] Speaker 03: You have a little of this and that. [00:40:36] Speaker 03: And you're trying to pick here and there. [00:40:38] Speaker 03: But your whole focus is on transmission. [00:40:41] Speaker 03: And that's a mistake. [00:40:42] Speaker 03: and the advisory committee agreed with them. [00:40:45] Speaker 03: And that's why my initial take on this is the agency made a terrible mistake. [00:40:50] Speaker 03: And they had plenty of opportunity to do it. [00:40:53] Speaker 06: Your honor, I just push back on that a little bit. [00:40:56] Speaker 06: I think in terms of the foundational analysis that Oak Ridge study, we believe the benefits that were described in that study based on the hypothetical pipelines [00:41:07] Speaker 06: And the agency explained that the risk profiles would be similar for these type A gathering lines. [00:41:13] Speaker 06: In terms of the advisory committee, I would just point out that the committee wasn't unanimous. [00:41:19] Speaker 06: They were split. [00:41:20] Speaker 06: Many of the committee members expressly supported and articulated their support for applying this rule to gathering lines. [00:41:27] Speaker 06: And again, they left it to the agency. [00:41:30] Speaker 06: as a part of their recommendation to decide whether to engage in a separate rulemaking. [00:41:35] Speaker 06: And in terms of the impact analysis and the incident, I might be misinterpreting how your honor's referring to impact analysis, but at least as to the incident report data, that did include gathering lines, both in the preliminary report and in the final assessment. [00:41:54] Speaker 06: So we believe, just to sum up, I'm well over my time and happy to- [00:42:00] Speaker 06: I'm happy to answer further questions, Your Honor. [00:42:04] Speaker 02: The petitioners point to a provision in the statute requiring, I think it was some sort of writing being submitted, postdoc writing to the committees, which wasn't done. [00:42:15] Speaker 02: And if I understood your answer, it was, well, we've never done that. [00:42:19] Speaker 06: Just to clarify our answer, Your Honor, our answer is that the agency [00:42:24] Speaker 06: uses the final rule as the written response to the committee. [00:42:27] Speaker 06: I will acknowledge. [00:42:29] Speaker 02: Does that seem to make it pointless to have the statutory commitment requirement? [00:42:36] Speaker 02: Isn't the point of reporting back to the committee so that they can have some, before you go final, some voice in the matter again? [00:42:46] Speaker 06: I don't think so, Your Honor, because this statute elsewhere refers to how proposed standards can evolve [00:42:54] Speaker 06: in response to committee recommendations, how the final risk assessment can evolve. [00:42:58] Speaker 06: And I think the importance of that requirement is to ensure that the secretary is addressing not just the comments from public that it received through notice and comment, but the recommendations from the committee as well. [00:43:13] Speaker 06: And the agency did that here in the final rule. [00:43:17] Speaker 06: I will acknowledge that the agency did not prepare that report [00:43:23] Speaker 06: within 90 days. [00:43:25] Speaker 06: There was some time between the committee process and the agency's final rule. [00:43:32] Speaker 06: And just to be transparent about that, that was our point when we were referring to the requirement of prejudice and the harmless error standard under the ADA. [00:43:43] Speaker 02: Regarding the 90 days. [00:43:44] Speaker 02: Exactly. [00:43:46] Speaker 02: But that's not your answer to no report at all. [00:43:50] Speaker 06: No, Your Honor. [00:43:51] Speaker 06: Our answer is that the final rule is the written report. [00:44:03] Speaker 04: Thank you. [00:44:04] Speaker 05: Thank you, Your Honors. [00:44:23] Speaker 02: Why can't all of your concerns be addressed by seeking an exemption site-specific as the Department of Transportation? [00:44:31] Speaker 00: Thanks for the question. [00:44:32] Speaker 00: I think I would give two responses. [00:44:35] Speaker 00: First, the exemption process places the burden on gathering line operators to essentially do the analysis that the agency was supposed to do in the first place. [00:44:45] Speaker 02: For them to do the analysis for every site? [00:44:48] Speaker 00: No, but basically to do the analysis of is it economically, technically, operationally feasible for gathering lines to have these agencies and do that. [00:44:56] Speaker 00: And then they're saying after the fact, well, if we didn't do in the rulemaking process, just come get your exemption. [00:45:02] Speaker 02: And the other problem with that is sometimes your exemption request would be based on, for instance, the economics. [00:45:08] Speaker 00: Sure, sure, sure. [00:45:09] Speaker 00: And the other issue with that is the agency can object. [00:45:13] Speaker 00: So there's no guarantee. [00:45:15] Speaker 00: My client's not having had the process on the front end. [00:45:18] Speaker 00: We're being subject to a rule that we think is arbitrary. [00:45:21] Speaker 00: And we don't think it's sufficient for the agency to say, but don't worry. [00:45:24] Speaker 00: You can come get an exemption. [00:45:26] Speaker 00: And then if the agency denies the exemption, we still have to comply with the arbitrary. [00:45:33] Speaker 00: I wanted to make one other point, not to belabor it too much, but on the study, agency citing the study from Kieffner, that was a study on leak detection technology, not used for rupture mitigation, entirely different type of technology, does not speak to rupture mitigation at all. [00:45:50] Speaker 02: Which studies are most? [00:45:51] Speaker 02: That was the Kieffner study. [00:45:53] Speaker 02: Oh yeah, that was on leak detection. [00:45:54] Speaker 00: Yeah, totally different subject. [00:45:56] Speaker 00: And just one final point on the Oak Ridge study, you will see clearly in the study itself, it says the results of this study apply to transmission pipelines. [00:46:06] Speaker 00: So that is what they were looking at and they knew. [00:46:09] Speaker 00: Thank you, Your Honor, for your time. [00:46:10] Speaker 02: Thank you. [00:46:11] Speaker 00: In case it's a minute.