Pipeline companies can now exclude investigation costs from damage reports

US pipeline regulators have changed how companies calculate property damage for incident reports. Companies no longer have to include the costs of investigating and repairing a leak when reporting how much damage it caused.

This change makes it easier for pipeline companies to avoid reporting incidents. By excluding significant costs like investigation and repair, fewer leaks will hit the threshold that requires public reporting. This means the public will have less information about the true scale and cost of pipeline failures.