On the day before the one-year anniversary of the deadly San Bruno, CA, pipeline rupture and explosion last year, California regulators on Thursday denied Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s (PG&E) request to have future increases in natural gas pipeline operating pressures done by a regulatory staff executive.

As an alternative, the five-member California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) unanimously adopted an expedited hearing process during which the commissioner will consider requests to restore the maximum allowable operating pressures (MAOP) in a dozen pipelines in which they have been lowered as a precaution in the wake of the San Bruno explosion.

Most immediately, a hearing has been set for Sept. 19 to consider PG&E’s request to have the pressure increased in its main transmission pipeline artery from the Arizona-California border (Line 300), according to CPUC Commissioner Mike Florio, who will preside at that hearing. The utility hopes to avoid any possible supply shortfalls this winter because of lower pressures in its Line 300.

On July 11 PG&E filed with the state regulatory panel seeking to have CPUC Executive Director Paul Clanon empowered to grant the authorizations to restore the MAOPs in certain transmission pipelines that run through highly populated areas and have characteristics similar to the 30-inch diameter Line 132, which ruptured last year, and for which the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) rendered its final report the end of August (see Daily GPI, Aug. 31).

Thursday’s CPUC action now establishes a public process requiring the San Francisco-based combination utility to “bring forward its senior officers responsible for gas system engineering to present test data and other information supporting its request to restore operating pressure.” Parties in the proceeding will be able to question the PG&E executives. Regulators intend the process to require the utility to provide “substantive information” that demonstrates a given pipeline can be operated safely.

In making a one-year report to the five CPUC members at their business meeting Thursday, Julie Halligan, deputy director of the CPUC’s Consumer Protection and Safety Division (CPSD), said in the wake of the San Bruno explosion the state regulatory commission had come to think that PG&E and other operators it regulates did not hold safety as the highest priority “to some degree.” This has led the CPUC to substantially change its rules and approach to ongoing pipeline integrity management programs, Halligan said.

Halligan reported on the reduction of pressures on 12 PG&E pipelines and distribution feeder mains for “various reasons,” ranging from lines with characteristics close to Line 132 and incomplete records or failed tests.

“It is important that PG&E justify to this commission and the public that the requested pressure restorations are safe,” Florio said. “That is why we will only allow PG&E to do so through a public and transparent process and after PG&E has presented evidence that it’s the right thing to do.”

Florio said this means in any restoration request PG&E needs to demonstrate it has gone beyond “a pressure test by a contractor.” Each request must include a thorough engineering review, he said.

Florio’s colleague on the CPUC, Timothy Alan Simon, who also chairs the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ natural gas committee, said the CPUC’s latest action will help adopt “an industry-wide safety culture and provide transparency in the utility’s pipeline re-pressuring process.”

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