An advocate of stiff pipeline safety laws, Rep. James L.Oberstar (D-MN) last week said he was “generally supportive” of therecent move by the Department of Transportation’s Office ofPipeline Safety’s (OPS) to toughen the requirements for safetyinspections of large hazardous liquid pipelines. But he believesPresident Clinton’s decree to the agency to beef up the safetystandards for small liquid and natural gas pipelines came up short.

“I am pleased that pipeline safety has risen to a level wherethe president has taken the unusual step of directing action by theDepartment of Transportation. However, I am concerned over the lackof specificity in some of [his] directives,” Oberstar, the rankingmember of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee,said during a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) hearingon pipeline safety in Washington D.C last Wednesday.

Earlier this month, Clinton directed the OPS to develop acomprehensive plan by Jan. 15 to improve safety standards for smallhazardous liquid and gas pipelines. “I would have preferred thepresident to have directed the OPS to issue [a notice of proposedrulemaking] by Jan. 15,” Oberstar said.

“Without an NPRM in place, there is a possibility that a newadministration of either party will want to take a step back andreassess the issues” before moving forward, he told NTSBcommissioners, industry executives and inspection experts at thehearing, which was called in the wake of the deadly explosion onthe El Paso Natural Gas system this past summer.

Oberstar helped to drive back an effort by House Republicanslast month to pass what was seen as a weak pipeline safety bill,effectively killing any chance for such legislation to emerge fromCongress this year.

Complementing Clinton’s action was the release by the OPS of afinal rule requiring that large hazardous liquid pipelinesperiodically inspect their systems at least once every five years,use internal inspection tools or pressure tests to conductinspections, meet specific deadlines for repairing system defectsand develop integrity management plans. In the rule, the OPS vowedto review each pipeline inspection plan.

Kelley S. Coyner, administrator of the DOT’s Research andSpecial Programs Administration, which oversees OPS, said thedepartment would need to double the number of its pipelineinspectors to 110 to carry out the new rule. She noted she plans toask for an additional $20 million in funding for inspectors and toconduct additional research.

NTSB Acting Chairman Jim Hall said the new OPS rule “appears tobe the first step to ensuring that pipelines are properly inspectedand tested.” The NTSB has been calling for mandatory pipelineinspections — by in-line inspection devices, such as smart pigs— since the late 1980s.

Andrew Drake of Duke Energy said he was especially concerned byHall’s singular emphasis on in-line devices for conductinginspections, saying that the NTSB chairman seems to view these as a”silver bullet.”

“These [OPS] requirements are critically important,” saidOberstar, who believes the “mandatory inspections” will preventfuture tragedies involving pipelines. “The need for regularinspections is particularly acute because of the age of ourpipeline system.” He estimated that one-fourth of the gas pipelinescurrently in operation are more than 50 years old.

Had mandatory, periodic inspections of pipelines been in placeearlier, he believes the August explosion on the El Paso system inNew Mexico – which killed 12 people – could have been avoided. TheNTSB, which still is investigating the blast, has said that failedsections of El Paso had significant internal corrosion andpipe-wall loss of more than 50% in some areas. The NTSB’s Hallfurther said the 50-year-old pipeline had never been properlytested.

“I believe that inspections probably would have uncovered thesecorrosion problems before they led to a tragedy. Without requiringpipeline inspections, there will be more tragedies,” warnedOberstar.

The Congressman had a problem with one aspect of the OPS rulethat would give hazardous liquid lines seven years to conduct theirfirst — or baseline — inspection of their systems. Although theNTSB, the Department of Justice and the Environmental ProtectionAgency argued in favor of baseline inspections being completed infive years, the OPS said the pipeline internal inspection industrydidn’t have enough “human and mechanical resources” to internallyinspect every pipeline in the five-year timetable.

The DOT agency concluded that the pipe inspection industry had”inadequate capacity for internal inspections over the next fiveyears…based largely on a brief memorandum from a consultant,”Oberstar noted. He urged the OPS to conduct studies to resolve thisissue.

More generally, he criticized the DOT for its poor track recordon issuing regulations. In fact, the DOT’s own inspector general(IG) has concluded that it takes the department, on average, twiceas long to issue rules than it did just six years ago. In 1993, theDOT issued 45 rules and averaged 1.8 years on each; last year, itreleased 20 rules and averaged 3.8 years on each.

“The IG concluded, and I agree, that the problem is basically amanagement problem,” Oberstar said. “What we need are managementreforms to improve the process. DOT’s senior management must makeit clear that it gives a high priority to completing rules onschedule.”

If the OPS needs more lawyers to work on pipeline safety rules,he said DOT Secretary Rodney Slater should expand the legal staffor reassign lawyers from elsewhere in the department.

“In addition to resources, [the] OPS and the department musthave the political will to go forward with the necessaryregulations, possibly in the face of objections and delayingtactics by a powerful and sophisticated industry.”

Susan Parker

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