The Department of Transportation (DOT) Friday issued a finalrule aimed at toughening safety standards for pipelinestransporting hazardous liquids through heavily populated andenvironmentally sensitive areas of the nation. The agency furtherindicated that a comparable rule for natural gas pipelines is onthe horizon.

The rule, which calls for mandatory integrity testing ofhazardous lines at least once every five years, would go intoeffect 60 days after being published in the Federal Register, atwhich time pipeline operators would have nine months to identifythe “entire range of threats” to the integrity of each pipelinesegment and a year to develop a written integrity managementprogram.

Similar rules are being developed for all pipelines underfederal and state oversight, including natural gas pipelines, andwill be released either later this year or in early 2001, accordingto the DOT’s Office of Pipeline Safety (OPS).

While the new rule mandates testing that many pipelines alreadyperform voluntarily, it will double the rate of testing for manyoperators and will require them to make available for governmentalreview their plans for assessing and addressing risks that cancontribute to pipeline failures, the OPS said.

Starting in a year, the OPS and state inspectors will reviewpipeline integrity management programs addressing such risks ascorrosion, outside force, human errors and material defects,according to the DOT agency.

In addition, President Clinton yesterday directed the DOT todevelop a comprehensive plan no later than Jan. 15, 2001 forfurther improving the safety standards for hazardous liquid andnatural gas pipelines. Such a plan would include guidelines forstrengthening enforcement of pipeline safety violators; enhancingfederal-state oversight of interstate pipelines; expanding publicaccess to information on pipelines (i.e. incident investigations);and greater coordination of research and development efforts onpipeline integrity between the Department of Energy, stateagencies, industry and the public.

While pipeline safety legislation appears to have all but diedin Congress this year, Clinton said the administration was takingthese steps using its existing authority. The deadly pipelineexplosions near Carlsbad, NM, and in Bellingham, WA, “haveunderscored the need” to initiate this action, although theadministration continues to support passage of a pipeline safetybill on Capitol Hill, the president indicated.

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