Cathodic disbondment testing is used to evaluate the long-term performance of barrier coatings used to protect metal pipe used in underground applications. A multilayered coating system failed this test. Experiments were done to understand the chemistry that led to this failure and that understanding led to potential formulation changes that allowed the coating system to pass the CD test. A simple and relatively inexpensive test based on coating chemistry changes caused by long term exposure to high pH was developed to screen changes to the coatings system. Chemical changes in the adhesive components of coating materials after soaking in solutions of various pH may be monitored by infrared spectroscopy. This paper demonstrates that changing the pH sensitive components of the coating to those shown to be insensitive to pH dramatically improves that likelihood of new coating systems to pass various cathodic disbondment tests.