Vanessa Allen Sutherland: [0:02] Welcome to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration's public workshop on IBR, Incorporation by Reference. Most notably, it's really a focus on Section 24 of the new Pipeline Safety, Regulatory Certainty, and Job Creation Act of 2011. [0:20] First, welcome to our webcast participants and everyone in the audience. Thank you very much for coming. We're very excited about this morning and the panels, as well as the latter half of the afternoon, which is a workshop session to help us really dig in to the implementation of Section 24.

[0:37] I am Vanessa Allen Sutherland, Chief Counsel at PHMSA. I will be co-hosting this event with Jeannie Layson, our Director of Governmental, Congressional and Public Affairs at PHMSA. In a moment, Jeannie will tell you a little bit about the overview of today, and some logistical details.

[0:56] First, just a couple of orders of business. I would very much like to thank several people for helping us put this together. Any event like this requires a lot of folks, and they often don't get thank yous for executing this well. Thank you to our legal interns, our internal DOT IBR team, several folks in The Public Affairs Group, and the DOT Media Center for their hard work and contributions to organizing this event.

[1:23] This morning, Jeannie and I, after giving an overview, will start with the morning panels, which will commence with a history and overview of IBR and related laws. We're going to use Incorporation by Reference and IBR all day. Any other acronyms, feel free to interrupt us. We know that there are webcast folks who may not be as familiar with that.

[1:45] But, we will then follow the overview with just a broad understanding of how PHMSA uses voluntary consensus standards in its rule making process. Just a statistical analysis, both from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials side of the house, of how many we use and how they facilitate our rulemaking.

[2:05] Then close out the morning before lunch with a facilitated discussion about Section 24 and some of the feedback we received from various stakeholders about how to best implement some of the issues or challenges that they have identified.

[2:21] Before we get started and before I turn it over to Jeannie, I just wanted to level set. Part of the reason we're having the morning session is to make sure that everyone is working off the same basic understanding of what the provision is, what it means.

[2:33] Section 24 requires that PHMSA...This is not a Hazmat-related issue, but the pipeline program only use voluntary consensus standards if they are available for free to the public on the Internet. As a result, various groups contacted us by mail and email identifying some potential concerns, issues or challenges as they saw it in implementing that section.

[3:03] We are holding this workshop to assure two things. First, that everyone's issues and comments are heard, and number two, that we facilitate a discussion in order to figure out how to most effectively and efficiently work through Section 24.

[3:17] There are, as many of you know, concurrent government efforts underway. There was an Office of the Federal Register notice, an OMB workshop, I believe, about a month or two ago, and several Bar and ACUS-related materials and guidance on this topic. We are trying to collaborate and make sure that we incorporate all of the efforts that are related to our IBR issue at the moment.

Jeannie: [3:43] is going to take a brief moment to provide you with an overview and some logistics, and to introduce our first panelists.

Jeannie Layson: [3:50] Thank you Vanessa, and good morning to everyone. Thank you for being here, and thank you to those who are tuning in on the webcast today. [3:58] As Vanessa said, we are here today to discuss PHMSA's implementation of the requirement that the agency forego using voluntary consensus standards that are incorporated by reference unless those standards are available free to the public on the Internet.

[4:13] Essentially, this is a topic about transparency and inclusion -- the idea that the public should have access to those standards that are the backbone of regulations that impact our daily lives. However, we have been made aware of challenges regarding its implementation, and we recognize that government doesn't always have all of the answers or solutions.

[4:33] That's why we have brought together a wide variety of experts from government agencies, the private sector and public interest groups. In the spirit of the requirement, our goal today is to have a workshop with all of you to figure out the most efficient and effective way to comply.

[4:50] Just as important, we are having this discussion in public. Today's workshop is an example of how government should operate and conduct its business, in a collaborative, transparent and inclusive manner. Now I'll cover the logistics and housekeeping for today.

[5:07] First of all, everyone please turn your cell phones off or put them on silent. Thank you very much. For the panelists, there is no need to move or turn on your microphones. The good folks here at the Media Center handle all of that automatically for us.

[5:22] WiFi is available for those of you here. The guest username is pipeandhazard, all spelled out, all lowercase. The password is summertime2012S. Please note that we do not exercise control over the data that may be passing through that network.

[laughter] [5:41]

Jeannie: [5:42] Restrooms are located outside of the Media Center to the right. Since safety is our top priority here at the Department of Transportation, in the very unlikely event of an evacuation, exit the building the way you came in, take a left and walk towards the river. [5:58] First, for the webcast audience, as Vanessa said, who may not be familiar with government acronyms, we would ask everyone today to please try and limit the use of those, or please explain what the acronym means. Thank you, we appreciate that.

As Vanessa said this morning, you will hear about the history of incorporating standards by reference, as well as PHMSA's use of voluntary consensus standards. After panel two, we will hear from members of the public who signed up to deliver statements. We'll have lunch from 12: [6:13] 35 to 1:30 in the Oklahoma Room.

[6:30] The last panel of the day will be a facilitated discussion about the most effective and efficient ways to comply with Section 24. During this segment we will take questions from the audience, as well as questions from those who are watching via the webcast.

[6:45] Just go to phmsa.dot.gov. The link is on the home page. Click on that and follow the instructions. We will take as many questions as time permits.

[6:57] Thank you to everyone for being here. We've got a lot of work to do today, so let's get started.

[7:02] On the first panel, we have Emily Bremer ...