The Center for Hydrogen Safety (CHS) announced that the US Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), an agency within the US Department of Transportation, has joined CHS as a strategic partner. PHMSA is the second federal agency to join CHS, following the US Department of Energy (DOE).

Having both DOE and PHMSA collaborating with CHS members on hydrogen safety further strengthens the Hydrogen Interagency Task Force’s (HIT’s) objective of fully leveraging federal capabilities across key initiatives and platforms to execute the national clean hydrogen strategy and accelerate the growth of America's emerging clean energy economy.

PHMSA's mission is to advance the safe transportation of energy and other hazardous materials that are essential to our daily lives. To do this, the agency establishes national policy, sets and enforces standards, educates, and conducts research to prevent incidents. It also prepares the public and first responders to reduce consequences if an incident does occur.

PHMSA’s scope of regulation, compliance, and safety encompasses more than 3.3 million miles of regulated domestic pipelines, 1.2 million daily shipments of hazardous materials, and 1.6 billion tons of hazardous materials shipped annually across all modes of transport.

As the federal agency that regulates the safety of our nation’s critical hydrogen transportation infrastructure, PHMSA is pleased to join the Center for Hydrogen Safety to share our expertise in the proper handling, storage, and transportation of hydrogen. Since 2021, PHMSA has invested nearly $11 million in research projects aimed at improving the safety of transporting and storing hydrogen through the use of America’s pipeline infrastructure including underground storage. These investments, coupled with the Center’s work, have only become more important as America continues to turn to hydrogen as an important decarbonization tool.

—PHMSA Deputy Administrator Tristan Brown

CHS is the result of a collaboration between the DOE’s Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and various global stakeholders.