Company: L
Filing Date: 2025-02-11
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000060086-25-000036
Chunk: 61

Company: LOEWS CORP
Filing Date: 2025-02-11
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 3
Chunk 61
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-investment grade and 15% not rated.

Pipeline System Maintenance and Greenhouse Gases (“GHGs”) Emission Reduction Initiatives

Boardwalk Pipelines incurs substantial costs for ongoing maintenance of its pipeline systems and related facilities, including those incurred for pipeline integrity management activities, equipment overhauls, general upkeep and repairs. These costs are not dependent on the amount of revenues earned from its transportation services. PHMSA has developed regulations that require transportation pipeline operators to implement integrity management programs to comprehensively evaluate certain high-risk areas, known as HCAs, and MCAs, along pipelines and take additional safety measures to protect people and property in these areas. The HCAs for natural gas pipelines are predicated on high-population density areas (which, for natural gas transmission lines, include Class 3 and 4 areas and, depending on the potential impacts of a risk event, may include Class 1 and 2 areas) whereas HCAs along Boardwalk Pipelines’ NGLs pipelines are based on high-population density areas, areas near certain drinking water sources and unusually sensitive ecological areas. These regulations have resulted in an overall increase in Boardwalk Pipelines’ ongoing maintenance costs, including maintenance capital and maintenance expense. PHMSA has issued a series of significant rulemakings for onshore gas transmission pipelines (e.g., relating to MAOP reconfirmation and exceedance reporting, the integrity assessment of additional pipeline mileage and the consideration of seismicity as a risk factor in integrity management). In August 2022, PHMSA published a final rule that attempted to expand the Management of Change process, corrosion control requirements for gas transmission pipelines, requirements that operators ensure no conditions exist following an extreme weather event that could adversely affect the safe operation of the pipeline, and repair criteria for non-HCAs. Five safety standards included in that rule were challenged by industry trade groups, and in August 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit struck down four of the five challenged safety standards. In September 2023, PHMSA published a proposed rule that, if finalized, would 

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enhance the safety requirements for gas distribution pipelines and would require updates to distribution integrity management programs, emergency response plans, operations and maintenance manuals and other safety practices.

Due to the nature of Boardwalk Pipelines’ business, its operations emit various types of GHGs. Boardwalk Pipelines seeks to monitor its emissions and expects to incur additional costs to mitigate emissions. New legislation or regulations could increase the costs related to operating