An advocate of stiff pipeline safety laws, Rep. James L.Oberstar (D-MN) said he was “generally supportive” of the recentmove by the Department of Transportation’s Office of PipelineSafety’s (OPS) to toughen the requirements for safety inspectionsof large hazardous liquid pipelines. But he believes PresidentClinton’s decree to the agency to beef up the safety standards forsmall 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 this week in Washington D.C.

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.

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 since the late 1980s.

“These requirements are critically important,” said Oberstar,who believes the “mandatory inspections” will prevent futuretragedies involving pipelines. “The need for regular inspections isparticularly acute because of the age of our pipeline system.” Heestimated that one-fourth of the gas pipelines currently inoperation 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.The NTSB, which still is investigating the blast, has said thatfailed sections 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 allow hazardous liquid lines seven years to conducttheir first — or baseline — inspection of their systems.Although the NTSB, the Department of Justice and the EnvironmentalProtection Agency argued in favor of baseline inspections beingcompleted in five years, the OPS said the pipeline internalinspection industry didn’t have enough “human and mechanicalresources” to internally inspect every pipeline in the five-yeartimetable.

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 now than it did just six years ago. In 1993,the DOT issued 45 rules and averaged 1.8 years on each; last year,it released 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.”

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