A manufacturing trade group is calling on Congress to empower FERC to strengthen physical and cyber security requirements for natural gas pipelines, similar to standards applied to the electric grid.

Pointing to the Colonial Pipeline attack as a “wake-up call” for lawmakers, the Industrial Energy Consumers of America (IECA) wrote in letters to the Senate and the House of Representatives that lawmakers should give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission authority to oversee reliability and establish mandatory requirements for securing natural gas pipelines against threats.

The IECA said pipelines should have federal reliability oversight comparable to electric infrastructure.

“Unlike electricity, there are no mandatory standards and there is only very limited federal...