# MCA 69-3-207 Penalty for violation of natural gas pipeline safety provisions and regulations

**Citation:** MCA 69-3-207  
**Type / status:** regulation / current  
**Agency:** Montana Legislature  
**Effective:** Not stated  
**Published:** Not stated

Montana's penalty and rulemaking provision for natural-gas pipeline-safety requirements within PSC enforcement authority.

## Document text

69-3-207. Penalty for violation of natural gas pipeline safety provisions and regulations.

69-3-207. Penalty for violation of natural gas pipeline safety provisions and regulations. (1) A person violating any safety regulation or provision adopted under the Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Act of 1968, as amended, that applies to areas the commission has authority to enforce is subject to a fine not to exceed $239,142 for each violation for each day. Each day in which a violation of a safety regulation or provision continues is considered a separate offense and is subject to the penalty prescribed in this subsection, except that the maximum fine may not exceed $2,391,412 for any related series of violations.

(2) In determining the amount of the penalty, the following must be considered: the nature, circumstances, and gravity of the violation and, with respect to the person found to have committed the violation, the degree of culpability; any history of prior violations; the effect on ability to continue to do business; any good faith in attempting to achieve compliance; ability to pay the penalty; and other matters as justice may require.

(3) The fine must be recovered in a civil action upon the complaint of the commission in any court of competent jurisdiction.

(4) The commission may prescribe rules necessary to effectively administer this section.

History: En. Sec. 8, Ch. 52, L. 1913; re-en. Sec. 3888, R.C.M. 1921; re-en. Sec. 3888, R.C.M. 1935; amd. Sec. 1, Ch. 248, L. 1969; R.C.M. 1947, 70-110(part); amd. Sec. 1, Ch. 170, L. 1985; amd. Sec. 1, Ch. 189, L. 1993; amd. Sec. 1, Ch. 124, L. 2005; amd. Sec. 1, Ch. 421, L. 2023.

## Provenance

- Official: Yes
- Source: <https://mca.legmt.gov/bills/mca/title_0690/chapter_0030/part_0020/section_0070/0690-0030-0020-0070.html>
- Source ID: `mt-pipeline-safety`
- SHA-256: `97de5abf9b6947b5d1908cc2434512fa21fa84ecb72181e9ab85bce088d4b3bd`
- Retrieved: 2026-08-20T10:29:10.884Z
- Exported: 2026-08-25T10:37:08.276Z
- Document slug: `mt-mca-69-3-207`

### Source metadata

```json
{
  "jurisdiction": "US-MT",
  "state": "Montana",
  "exactScope": "This corpus contains the complete current text of the Montana PSC's two dedicated pipeline-safety subchapters, ARM 38.5.22 and 38.5.23, plus the directly implementing natural-gas pipeline-safety statute, MCA 69-3-207. The SOS inventories prove 12 current rules and retain 14 ineffective or repealed entries as non-searchable omissions.",
  "excludedScope": "It does not claim to contain all Montana pipeline law. Common-carrier status and reports (including ARM 38.7.1 and MCA Title 69, chapter 13), one-call damage prevention, siting and routing, environmental permits, utility rates and service, federal law, local law, tariffs, dockets, orders, forms, and guidance are outside this bounded corpus.",
  "applicabilityCaveat": "The Montana PSC describes itself as the certified inspection authority for intrastate natural-gas pipelines and states that federal PHMSA retains interstate gas pipelines and every liquid line operating within or through Montana. Inclusion is therefore limited to Montana's certified gas program; it is not evidence of a Montana hazardous-liquid certification. ARM 38.5.2304 also excludes activity over which the commission has not accepted jurisdiction.",
  "incorporationCaveat": "ARM 38.5.2202 incorporates 49 CFR Parts 191, 192, and 193, and ARM 38.5.2302 incorporates 49 CFR Part 199, only through revisions enacted on or before November 25, 2025. The connector records these references but does not reproduce or silently update incorporated federal text.",
  "publicationCaveat": "Currentness is tied to the Montana Secretary of State policy-library inventories, active policy version UUIDs, SOS-declared document hashes, and express rule effective dates observed at retrieval. MCA 69-3-207 is taken from the Legislature's Montana Code Annotated 2025 page and its Part 2 inventory. Retrieval dates and HTTP dates are provenance, not legal effective dates.",
  "rights": "Official Montana SOS, PSC, and Legislature materials are archived with attribution and byte-level SHA-256 provenance. Public availability does not resolve rights in site presentation, agency marks, linked materials, or incorporated federal and third-party works; downstream redistribution requires separate review.",
  "rightsReviewRequired": true,
  "publicationObservedOn": "2026-08-20",
  "gasCertification": "Montana PSC certified inspection authority for intrastate natural-gas pipelines",
  "hazardousLiquidCertification": "No Montana hazardous-liquid certification claimed; PSC assigns all liquid lines to federal PHMSA",
  "layer": "statute",
  "codeEdition": 2025,
  "title": 69,
  "chapter": "69-3",
  "part": "69-3-2",
  "section": "69-3-207",
  "history": "History: En. Sec. 8, Ch. 52, L. 1913; re-en. Sec. 3888, R.C.M. 1921; re-en. Sec. 3888, R.C.M. 1935; amd. Sec. 1, Ch. 248, L. 1969; R.C.M. 1947, 70-110(part); amd. Sec. 1, Ch. 170, L. 1985; amd. Sec. 1, Ch. 189, L. 1993; amd. Sec. 1, Ch. 124, L. 2005; amd. Sec. 1, Ch. 421, L. 2023.",
  "historyCaveat": "The MCA page gives legislative-session history but no exact legal effective date for the current section; no statute timeline event is inferred.",
  "references": [
    {
      "citation": "ARM 38.5.2201",
      "referenceType": "state-administrative-rule",
      "url": "https://rules.mt.gov"
    },
    {
      "citation": "ARM 38.5.2202",
      "referenceType": "state-administrative-rule",
      "url": "https://rules.mt.gov"
    },
    {
      "citation": "ARM 38.5.2203",
      "referenceType": "state-administrative-rule",
      "url": "https://rules.mt.gov"
    },
    {
      "citation": "ARM 38.5.2204",
      "referenceType": "state-administrative-rule",
      "url": "https://rules.mt.gov"
    },
    {
      "citation": "ARM 38.5.2205",
      "referenceType": "state-administrative-rule",
      "url": "https://rules.mt.gov"
    },
    {
      "citation": "ARM 38.5.2206",
      "referenceType": "state-administrative-rule",
      "url": "https://rules.mt.gov"
    },
    {
      "citation": "ARM 38.5.2207",
      "referenceType": "state-administrative-rule",
      "url": "https://rules.mt.gov"
    },
    {
      "citation": "ARM 38.5.2208",
      "referenceType": "state-administrative-rule",
      "url": "https://rules.mt.gov"
    },
    {
      "citation": "ARM 38.5.2209",
      "referenceType": "state-administrative-rule",
      "url": "https://rules.mt.gov"
    },
    {
      "citation": "ARM 38.5.2301",
      "referenceType": "state-administrative-rule",
      "url": "https://rules.mt.gov"
    },
    {
      "citation": "ARM 38.5.2302",
      "referenceType": "state-administrative-rule",
      "url": "https://rules.mt.gov"
    },
    {
      "citation": "ARM 38.5.2304",
      "referenceType": "state-administrative-rule",
      "url": "https://rules.mt.gov"
    }
  ],
  "region": "MT"
}
```