The Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee introduced pipeline safety reauthorization legislation late Wednesday that mirrors many of the same provisions in the House bills. Despite the activity on Capitol Hill, legislative analysts believe the odds are low that a pipe safety bill will clear Congress this year.

The Senate measure (S. 3961) would establish new civil enforcement authority against excavators and pipeline operators that cause third-party damage to pipeline facilities; would provide grants to states to strengthen their damage-prevention programs; would require the Department of Transportation (DOT) to issue integrity management standards for natural gas distribution lines; and would require the DOT to publish a monthly summary of enforcement actions against natural gas and hazardous liquids pipelines beginning in October 2007.

The bill also provides $6 million for DOT to hire an additional 45 federal inspectors over a four-year period. The DOT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration currently has 90 inspectors, which translates into one inspector for every 18,000 miles of pipeline in the United States.

In the lower chamber, the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday approved by unanimous voice vote its pipeline safety reauthorization bill. The bipartisan measure (HR 5782) was a substitute version of legislation that was passed by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in July (see Daily GPI, Sept. 28).

Pipeline safety legislation, if adopted by Congress, would replace the existing pipeline safety law, the Pipeline Safety Act of 2002, which expires at the end of the month.

House Energy Committee Chairman Joe Barton (R-TX) said his goal was to get the bill approved by the House before it adjourns for the mid-term elections, but that seemed unlikely. The two House committees still have to reconcile their different versions of the bill. The Senate Commerce bill is the first action that the Senate has taken on pipe safety reauthorization this year.

“The chances of Congress finishing a bill [this year] are fairly low,” said Martin Edwards, vice president of legislative affairs for the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America. He cited an “uncertain schedule, a lame-duck session” as factors that are diminishing the chances of pipe safety legislation clearing the Congress.

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