Florida Gas Transmission v. TRAN

── Florida Gas Transmission v. TRAN ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Date: May 20, 2026 Category: Agency Case: 24-60420 Document: 83-1 Page: 1 Date Filed: 05/20/2026 United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit FILED ____________ May 20, 2026 No. 24-60420 Lyle W. Cayce ____________ Clerk Florida Gas Transmission Company, L.L.C., a subsidiary of Energy Transfer, L.P., Petitioner, versus United States Department of Transportation; Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration; Office of Pipeline Safety, Respondents. ______________________________ Petition for Review of an Order of the Department of Transportation, National Transportation Safety Board Agency No. 4-2022-032-NOPV ______________________________ Before Haynes, Ho, and Oldham, Circuit Judges. Per Curiam: * A natural gas pipeline burst. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, an agency within the U.S. Department of Transportation, investigated the incident. It determined that the company that owns and operates the pipeline violated two federal regulations, and _____________________ * This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5. Case: 24-60420 Document: 83-1 Page: 2 Date Filed: 05/20/2026 No. 24-60420 imposed fines accordingly. But we hold that the company complied with all applicable regulations, and thus vacate the agency’s final order. I. Florida Gas Transmission Company is a natural gas transportation company. Florida Gas operates the Sanford Lateral, a pipeline built in 1959 and previously operated by Enron. The line is made of low-frequency electric-resistance-welded steel pipe. This type of pipe has seams which can be vulnerable to corrosion and related seam-integrity issues. Like most long-lived pipelines, the Sanford Lateral has experienced ruptures, anomalies, and other incidents. It suffered ruptures in 2009 and 2012. But the cause of these ruptures is unknown. In 2014, Florida Gas identified an anomaly on the line and, treating it as corrosion, installed a sleeve to remediate the area. As part of its integrity-management program, Florida Gas conducted in-line inspections in 2014 and 2019 using an axially aligned magnetic-flux-leakage (MFL-A) tool. By contrast, a circumferential magnetic-flux leakage (MFL-C) tool is better suited to detect certain seam anomalies. See Florida Gas Transmission Company, Final Order, CPF No. 4-2022-032-NOPV, *12 (May 21, 2024) (“MFL-C [tools are] more sensitive [than MFL-A tools] to axially aligned metal-loss defects.” (quotations omitted)). In 2020, the pipeline ruptured along its longitudinal seam. The escaping gas ignited and burned roughly 51,500 square feet of land, causing significant property damage but, fortunately, no injuries. Subsequent inspection and failure analysis revealed the cause of the rupture as stress-corrosion cracking, a type of corrosion which forms on the outside of the pipeline and does not involve significant metal loss. Stress- corrosion cracking is challenging to spot because, “[u]nlike a component widely known to have manufacturing defects that can be identified by an