The Department of Transportation’s Office of Pipeline Safety(OPS) came under sharp attack last week on Capitol Hill, withcritics lashing out against the agency for its “poor record” ofensuring the safe operation of the hundreds of thousands of milesof natural gas and hazardous liquids pipelines that criss-cross thenation.

At a hearing before the Senate Commerce, Science andTransportation Committee on Thursday, the families of three boyswho died as a result of a product pipeline explosion in Bellingham,WA, last year, the National Transportation Safety Board and eventhe DOT itself urged congressional lawmakers to take substantivelegislative action to provide for more thorough inspection ofinterstate pipelines by the federal government and states.

The families uniformly asked the Senate panel to pass pipelinesafety legislation that will impose stiffer fines on pipelines inthe event of spills and accidents, better protect pipelineemployees who become whistle-blowers and create a network ofregional advisory councils to help oversee the safety of gas andhazardous liquids lines. One father went a little bit further inhis request, suggesting that pipes be fined even when accidents arecaused by third-party damage, and that they be shut down completelywhen a death occurs or a spill exceeds a certain level.

Committee Chairman Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) assured the familiesthe panel will “bend every effort” to try to mark up pipelinesafety reauthorization legislation and get it through the Senatethis year, but some lawmakers think the chances of this happeningare slim. Since the pipeline explosion last June, a number oflawmakers have introduced bills, including McCain and practicallythe entire delegation of Washington state — Sen. Patty Murray (D)and Reps. Jack Metcalf (R) and Jay Inslee (D). Sen. Slade Gorton(R-WA) is a co-sponsor of the McCain and Murray measures. TheClinton administration also has introduced its own proposal.

“I think Sen. McCain’s bill forms a good foundation…..but Ialso believe that Sen. Murray’s bill as well as theadministration’s bill has a number of good provisions,” DOT’sInspector General Kenneth Mead told the committee. He said Murray’sproposal is “particularly good in encouraging states to have arole” in pipeline inspections, but he would “draw a distinction” atallowing the states to enact safety regulations.

Gas pipeline companies dislike both Murray’s and the Clintonadministration’s pipeline measures, especially the provisions thatcall on the states to partner with the federal government ininspecting pipes for safety hazards.

Sen. John Breaux (D-LA) was the lone supporter of leavingoversight at the federal level, arguing having 50 different statesoverseeing pipe safety would be a “serious mistake.” Also, he wasone of the few champions of pipelines at the hearing, saying thatthey “have one of the best safety records.”

Bellingham Mayor Mark Asmundson agreed that a “balkanizedpatchwork” of state safety regulations would be counter-productive,but he believes cooperation between states and the federalgovernment on pipeline inspections is essential. “There’s animportant role for states.”

The states already are participating more in this area. Lastweek, the Texas Railroad Commission (RRC) directed TXU Corp. toreplace and remove from its gas pipeline system older types ofpolyethylene pipe by Dec. 31, 2000. The RRC cited this kind ofpipeline, also known as “Poly I” pipe, as a factor in a houseexplosion involving a TXU pipeline in Garland, TX. TXU voluntarilybegan removing the “Poly I” pipe from its system in 1997, andreplacing it with a newer generation of polyethylene pipe.

At the hearing, Rep. Inslee proposed that Congress approvefederal certification standards for pipeline operators similar tothose in the trucking and airlines industries. Lawmakers need to”look very carefully at not just improving the steel, but thehumans” also.

The OPS has “woefully failed” to comply with the mandatesestablished by Congress in previous pipeline safety reauthorizationbills, said the mother of an 18-year-old boy who died in theBellingham accident. She charged the industry is “largely selfregulated.”

As a result of an internal investigation, the DOT’s Mead said itfound the Research and Special Programs Administration (RSPA),which oversees the OPS, has been “at least five years behind” incarrying out the pipeline safety mandates of Congress. For example,the RSPA issued a notice of proposed rulemaking last month “fiveyears after the statutory due date.”

Moreover, the proposed rulemaking only addressed pipelineoperator standards for hazardous liquids pipelines; it ignored”inspections for over 300,000 miles of natural gas transmissionpipelines.” Proposed standards for gas lines won’t come out untileither later this year or early next year.

Mead further criticized the RSPA for maintaining unreliable dataaddressing pipeline accidents and the adequacy of certaintechnologies in identifying and preventing pipe failures. Forexample, while most hazardous liquids pipes can use smart pigs todetect certain kinds of defects, such as corrosion, “we found thatincredibly [the] RSPA does not have estimates [on the number of]natural gas pipelines that can be pigged. One of the largestnatural gas pipeline companies [told me] that only about 15% oftheir pipeline could accommodate pigs.”

Moreover, although some members of Congress urged increasedhydrostatic testing of pipelines to detect seam failures, Meadwarned that “you should know that type of testing can harm orweaken a pipe, and does not determine the extent or severity ofdefects.” He urged more research into developing advanced smartpigs.

John Hammerschmidt of the National Transportation Safety Board(NTSB) criticized OPS for largely ignoring many of therecommendations the NTSB has made over the years with respect totraining and testing of pipeline personnel. “Inadequate trainingcontinues to be a factor in pipeline accidents.”

Excavation damage remains a leading cause of pipeline accidents,according to Hammerschmidt. “This issue is on the safety board’s’Most Wanted’ list.” In fact, in December 1997, the board proposed26 recommendations aimed at improving excavation-damage prevention.He noted RSPA Administrator Kelley Coyner also “takes this issuevery seriously,” adding that hopefully it will receive “favorableaction” on its recommendations this time.

Susan Parker

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