PHMSA Voluntary Information Sharing Act
Analysis under review: This bill has generated analysis that may be too generic or incomplete. Clause-level evidence remains available below.
Summary
What This Bill Does
Directs the Secretary of Transportation to establish a confidential, nonpunitive, voluntary information-sharing system for pipeline safety data, governed by a stakeholder board and supported by a program manager, third-party data manager, and issue analysis teams.
Who Benefits and How
Pipeline operators, regulators, labor, public safety advocates, and communities near pipelines could benefit from shared lessons, aggregated safety data, and recommended remediation measures that are not tied to punitive disclosure.
Who Bears the Burden and How
PHMSA, the governing board, the third-party data manager, and issue analysis teams would take on new governance, data-protection, analysis, reporting, and coordination duties. Public access to some nonpublic safety information would remain limited by confidentiality protections.
Key Provisions
- Establishes the voluntary information-sharing system within one year.
- Creates a 15-member governing board balanced among government, pipeline industry, and public safety stakeholders.
- Makes the PHMSA Administrator the program manager and requires appointment of a third-party data manager.
- Authorizes issue analysis teams to aggregate and analyze submitted pipeline safety data.
- Makes participation voluntary, requires operator authorization for operator data, and protects accepted nonpublic data from disclosure.
- Exempts the system, board, and issue analysis teams from the Federal Advisory Committee Act.
Evidence Chain:
This summary is generated from the full bill text using AI analysis. Expand "Detailed Analysis" below for identified beneficiaries/burden bearers.
At a Glance
What This Bill Does
Directs the Secretary of Transportation to establish a confidential, nonpunitive, voluntary information-sharing system for pipeline safety data, governed by a stakeholder board and supported by a program manager, third-party data manager, and issue analysis teams.
Key Policy Areas
Transportation, Energy, Public Safety, Government Operations
Primary Purpose
Directs the Secretary of Transportation to establish a confidential, nonpunitive, voluntary information-sharing system for pipeline safety data, governed by a stakeholder board and supported by a program manager, third-party data manager, and issue analysis teams.
Policy Domains
Main Provisions
Identified Gains
Contextual inference, no direct clause citation- Pipeline operators and workers sharing safety information through a nonpunitive system
- Communities and public safety stakeholders benefiting from improved pipeline safety lessons and remediation measures
- PHMSA and state pipeline safety agencies receiving aggregated safety insights
Contextual inference, no direct clause citation
Identified Costs
Contextual inference, no direct clause citation- PHMSA and VIS governance participants responsible for board, data, analysis, and reporting operations
- Public users seeking access to nonpublic pipeline safety data protected by confidentiality rules
Contextual inference, no direct clause citation
Sponsors
Legislative Progress
In CommitteeMr. Moran (for himself and Ms. Duckworth) introduced the following …
Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, …
Introduced in Senate
Stakeholder Effects
cui bono?How this legislation distributes effects. Mention counts reflect frequency, not effect magnitude.
Communities and public safety stakeholders near pipeline infrastructure
PHMSA and VIS governance participants administering board, data-management, analysis, and reporting functions
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
- "secretary"
- → Secretary of Transportation
- "administrator"
- → Administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration
- "governing_board"
- → VIS Governing Board
- "third_party_data_manager"
- → Third-Party Data Manager
Key Definitions
Terms defined in this bill
The Administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
The stakeholder governing board established for the voluntary information-sharing system.
The data manager appointed by the Governing Board to receive, secure, de-identify, store, manage, analyze, and report on accepted VIS data.
The voluntary information-sharing system established to improve pipeline safety data sharing.
We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.
Learn more about our methodology