The deadly explosion that occurred on El Paso Natural Gas’pipeline Aug. 19 in Carlsbad, NM, killing 12 people who werecamping nearby provided enough incentive for the Senate to swiftlypass pipeline safety legislation last week. However, critics saythe legislation fails miserably by doing nothing to improve theterrible track record of the government agency in charge ofoverseeing pipeline safety.

Thursday evening the Senate approved the Pipeline SafetyImprovement Act, S. 2438, a bill the pipeline industry says istougher than expected, but apparently not unbearable. Thelegislation would increase fines, boost state oversight, increasefunding for the Department of Transportation’s Office of PipelineSafety, require more inspections and detailed reports toregulators, and would grant whistleblower status to pipelineworkers who have information about safety problems.

The bill was introduced by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), chairman ofthe Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, and iscosponsored by Sens. Slade Gorton (R-WA), Patty Murray (D-WA), JeffBingaman (D-NM), Pete Domenici (R-NM), and Charles Robb (D-VA). Itpassed less than a week after Congress returned from its Augustrecess. It now will be sent to the House.

“We must do everything in our power to prevent needless deaths,destructive fires and environmental damage that occur as a resultof unsafe pipelines,” McCain said in a statement. Sadly, thislegislation is in large part in response to two devastatingpipeline accidents that have occurred in the states of Washingtonand New Mexico during the past 15 months.”

A total of 15 lives were lost in those accidents. Three youngmen endured fatal injuries in June 1999 in Bellingham, WA, when227,000 gallons of gasoline leaked from an underground pipeline andwere accidentally ignited. Last month, 12 members of two familiescamping in New Mexico lost their lives because of the El Pasorupture.

The McCain legislation would require DOT to issue regulationsmandating that pipeline operators periodically determine theadequacy of their pipelines to safely operate and to adopt andimplement integrity management programs to reduce identified risks.It also would require a pipeline operator to carry out a continuingpublic education program. It would increase the level of maximumcivil penalties for a violation from $25,000 to $100,000. Themaximum civil penalty for a series of safety regulation violationswould be increased from $500,000 to $1 million. It also wouldenhance the state oversight role by permitting states that have theauthority over intrastate lines to enter into agreements with theTransportation Secretary to participate in the oversight ofinterstate lines. It directs the Transportation Secretary todevelop and implement a comprehensive plan to collect and usepipeline data in a manner that would enable incident trend analysisand evaluations of operator performance. It also provides for acollaborative research and development effort on pipeline safety.

The three-year bill authorizes federal funding at $26 millionfor fiscal year 2001, $30 million for fiscal year 2002, and $30million for fiscal year 2003. The pipeline state grant program isfunded at $17 million for fiscal year 2001, $20 million for fiscalyear 2002, and $20 million for fiscal 2003.

The Senate Commerce Committee approved McCain’s bill in June,but the measure stalled for weeks. The El Paso explosion, however,obviously had an impact on legislative negotiations with theindustry.

“While we are pleased that the Senate has been able to cometogether on an agreement on a pipeline safety bill that getsdirectly at improving pipeline safety, this is a tougher bill thanwe anticipated,” said Jerald V. Halvorsen, president of theInterstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA), whichrepresents the natural gas pipeline industry. “Once pipeline safetylegislation passes this Congress, our challenge will be to forgeahead to work with the Department of Transportation on a pipelineintegrity rule.”

However, the bill isn’t nearly tough enough for Lois Epstein, asenior engineer with Environmental Defense. Her organization, alongwith another public advocacy group, Fuel Safe Washington, and TheNational Pipeline Reform Coalition, released a publication lastweek titled Out of Sight, Out of Mind No More: Pipeline TragediesAcross the U.S., which can be found at www.fuelsafewashington.orgon the web. The publication calls for Congress to significantlystrengthen the pipeline safety law this year, and to develop anoversight strategy for the Office of Pipeline Safety.

“We are very disappointed,” said Epstein. “[The bill] doesn’tinclude anything that the Office of Pipeline Safety isn’t alreadydoing or can’t do under its existing authority.

“It does have one additional enforcement tool that theDepartment of Justice can use if the Office of Pipeline Safetysends cases over to them. That could be helpful, but they don’thave a great record of doing a lot of enforcement to begin with,”she added. The bill raises fines for safety violations, but thathas no impact if the OPS never issues any fines, Epstein noted.”The problem with their enforcement hasn’t been that they’ve beenbumping up against the fine limits; it’s been that they haven’tbeen issuing fines at all. The [Government Accounting Office (GAO)]found that of their enforcement actions, only one out of 25 getfined.”

Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the HouseCommerce Committee, already has called on Transportation SecretaryRodney E. Slater to undertake a “thorough review and restructuring”of the OPS in the wake of reports that contend OPS officials havebecome too cozy with the pipelines that they are supposed to beregulating.

Recent reports by GAO and the DOT Inspector General paint “apicture of an agency that places disturbing amounts of faith in theindustry it is supposed to regulate, and is unable or willing to carryout any of its responsibility under the law,” wrote Dingell in a June14 letter to Slater (see Daily GPI, June20). It concluded OPS has an “abysmal” record of monitoring andoverseeing natural gas and hazardous product pipelines, Dingell said.

Although OPS’s enforcement action increased by 132% between 1990and 1998, the agency in many of the cases opted to send letters tothe pipeline safety violators rather than imposing monetarypenalties, the GAO said. It estimated the OPS’s use of penaltiesdropped 90% between 1990 and 1998, while the agency’s use ofletters rose to 68% by 1998. And even in cases where penalties werelevied, they were “relatively insignificant compared to pipelinerevenues,” and were only “occasionally collected” by the agency,Dingell said of the GAO findings.

Several House pipeline safety bills have been introduced, butHouse Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman BudShuster, R-Pa., is crafting a new bill similar to McCain’s versionthat a Transportation subcommittee is expected to take up as earlyas next week. Bill sponsors say there is still time to gain finalpassage of a pipeline bill this year.

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