This paper presents preliminary results in our effort to develop a hydrogen permeation testing method using electrochemical hydrogen charging to screen the comparative performance of candidate polymer barrier coatings as applied to pipeline steel. So-called sandwich membrane assembles with the non-conducting polymer coating located in between two conducting metallic (steel) plates were used for this purpose. Significant variation in the oxidizing current density transients was observed from the replicate testing conducted, which made it difficult to determine the more typical permeation barrier performance of the candidate polymer coating under study. Changes to the sandwich membrane assembly design are proposed to improve more reproducible transient and thus a more meaningful interpretation of the permeation barrier coating performance. An attempt was also made to use the slow strain rate technique to comparatively screen hydrogen embrittlement susceptibility of polymer-coated steel samples when immersed in hydrogenated water. Initial measurements using uncoated AISI/SAE 1144 free-machining steel samples did not reveal a susceptibility to hydrogen embrittlement.