# S.C. Code Ann. Section 58-5-1010 - Records and reports of gas utilities; inspections and investigations; accident reports **Citation:** S.C. Code Ann. Section 58-5-1010 **Type / status:** regulation / current **Agency:** South Carolina General Assembly **Effective:** 2006-05-24 **Published:** 2006-05-24 (a) Each gas utility which engages in the transportation of gas or which owns or operates pipeline facilities shall establish and maintain such records, make such reports, and provide such information as the Office of Regulatory Staff may reasonably require to enable it to determine whether the utility has acted or is acting in compliance with the standards established under this article. (b) Each utility shall permi ## Document text (a) Each gas utility which engages in the transportation of gas or which owns or operates pipeline facilities shall establish and maintain such records, make such reports, and provide such information as the Office of Regulatory Staff may reasonably require to enable it to determine whether the utility has acted or is acting in compliance with the standards established under this article. (b) Each utility shall permit an officer, employee, or agent of the Office of Regulatory Staff to inspect books, papers, records, and documents relevant to determining whether the utility has acted or is acting in compliance with the standards established pursuant to this article. (c) The Office of Regulatory Staff may conduct such other relevant inspection and investigation as may be necessary to aid in the enforcement of the standards established pursuant to this article. For purposes of enforcement of this article, officers, employees, or agents of the Office of Regulatory Staff upon presenting appropriate credentials to the individual in charge are authorized (1) to enter upon, at reasonable times, pipeline facilities, and (2) to inspect, at reasonable times and within reasonable limits and in a reasonable manner the facilities. Each inspection shall be commenced and completed with reasonable promptness. (d) Accident reports made by any officer, employee, or agent of the Office of Regulatory Staff shall be available for use, but not admissible into evidence, in any civil, criminal, or other judicial proceeding arising out of an accident. Any officer, employee, or agent may be required to testify in such proceedings as to the facts developed in the investigations, but no officer, employee, or agent shall give opinion testimony or otherwise testify as to the ultimate fact in any civil, criminal, or other judicial proceeding out of the accident, except in a proceeding or action between the Office of Regulatory Staff and a gas utility. Any report shall be made available to the public in a manner which need not identify individuals. All reports on research projects, demonstration projects, and other related activities shall be public information. (e) All information reported to or otherwise obtained by the commission, the Office of Regulatory Staff, or their representatives pursuant to subsection (a), (b), or (c), which information contains or relates to a trade secret, shall be considered confidential, except that such information may be disclosed to other officers or employees concerned with carrying out this article or when relevant in any proceeding under this article. Nothing in this section shall authorize the withholding of information by the commission, the Office of Regulatory Staff, or any officer, employee, or agent under its control from the duly authorized committees of the state legislature. HISTORY: 1962 Code SECTION 58-141; 1970 (56) 2420; 2006 Act No. 318, SECTION 29, eff May 24, 2006. ## Provenance - Official: Yes - Source: - Source ID: `sc-leg-pipeline-safety` - SHA-256: `f84e006e2c22ea3eba70305e12874fc1062020008d0d84c812710dfe0dbcfd4e` - Retrieved: 2026-08-20T11:28:25.511Z - Exported: 2026-08-24T03:56:53.694Z - Document slug: `sc-code-58-5-1010` ### Source metadata ```json { "jurisdiction": "US-SC", "documentClass": "statute", "code": "South Carolina Code of Laws", "publicationObservedOn": "2026-08-20", "certification": "49 U.S.C. 60105 intrastate-gas program", "hazardousLiquidSafetyJurisdiction": false, "interstateGasEnforcementJurisdiction": false, "dynamicFederalIncorporation": false, "sourceNote": "HISTORY: 1962 Code SECTION 58-141; 1970 (56) 2420; 2006 Act No. 318, SECTION 29, eff May 24, 2006.", "references": [], "caveats": { "exactScope": "This bounded corpus contains 27 current, direct South Carolina gas-pipeline safety provisions: 14 provisions from Chapter 103, Article 4, including only pipeline-safety portions 103-412(2.6)-(2.7), and 13 provisions from the South Carolina Gas Safety Act of 1970, S.C. Code Sections 58-5-920 through 58-5-1070. The complete current Chapter 103 gas-systems article and complete current Gas Safety Act article are inventoried as the completeness boundary.", "excludedScope": "Customer deposits, billing, rates, certificates, economic service, routine metering, gas quality, curtailment, ordinary utility records, and related engineering provisions are adjacent or excluded and are not searchable. Chapter 58-36 excavation and one-call law, tariffs, dockets, orders, inspection forms, enforcement files, federal text, private standards, and non-gas programs require separate corpora. Interstate gas and all hazardous-liquid pipelines are excluded from the proven state-certification scope.", "applicability": "Applicability depends on the statutory definition of gas utility and pipeline facility, public-utility and gas-system status, commodity, facility type, intrastate or interstate status, federal jurisdiction, statutory exclusions for liquefied petroleum gas and anhydrous ammonia, waivers, and the text in force on the relevant date. PHMSA identifies South Carolina as certified for intrastate gas only and retains interstate gas and both intrastate and interstate hazardous-liquid enforcement. This connector does not infer hazardous-liquid certification.", "incorporation": "Regulation 103-490 and Sections 58-5-920, 58-5-970, and 58-5-1050 use rolling language for federal gas-safety standards as amended from time to time. Regulation 103-461 also points to editions of private standards referenced by federal rules. This connector links but does not reproduce incorporated federal or private standards and does not decide edition, preemption, or incorporation-validity questions.", "publication": "The South Carolina Legislature's current Code of Regulations index, official Chapter 103 PDF, and current Code of Laws HTML are the controlling publication set used here. Rule histories and statutory history notes support only the explicit events emitted; retrieval time is a publication observation, not a legal event or historical version.", "rights": "Official South Carolina and federal-government artifacts are retained with attribution and SHA-256 provenance. Public access does not establish unrestricted rights in site presentation, agency marks, forms, photographs, linked material, or incorporated private standards; private standards are not reproduced." }, "region": "SC" } ```