Facing ever-stiffer criticism and monetary penalties for its past natural gas pipeline safety blunders, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) on Friday asked state regulators to separate its ongoing pipe proceedings into one to set future rules and another to review the combination utility’s past safety practices.

PG&E is asking for greater differentiation between two ongoing proceedings — a rulemaking looking at new rules and safety standards and the other an investigation (OII) of the utility’s handling of its pipeline maintenance and safety programs before, during and after the fatal San Bruno transmission pipeline rupture and explosion on Sept. 9, 2010. PG&E asked the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to amend the current proceeding to focus on the safety and technical aspects of its $2.2 billion Pipeline Safety Enhancement Plan exclusively and deal with testimony and evidence regarding past practices in a parallel proceeding.

In seeking a clear differentiation between the future safety plan and past practices that are subject to potential penalties, the CPUC can avoid duplication in the two proceedings, PG&E said.

Nick Stavropoulos, PG&E executive vice president of gas operations, has called the utility’s past practices “unacceptable,” and said that “they will not happen again. Our customers and regulators expect and deserve more.”

In the rulemaking on PG&E’s pipeline safety plan for the future, some of the testimony addresses the OII looking at past practices and should be limited to the latter proceeding, the utility said in its filing. PG&E asked the CPUC to act on its request on an accelerated basis over the next week.

Keeping the past practice issues out of the rulemaking on the PG&E plan will move the plan along more quickly, the utility argued in its filing. “If all of the [enforcement] issues raised by the pending OIIs were imported into this [rulemaking] proceeding, the hearing schedule would have to be delayed and expanded by weeks, if not months,” PG&E told the CPUC. The testimony already filed on the past practices in the safety plan proceedings can be reassigned to the investigation OII.

On Thursday PG&E informed the CPUC that it found 10 pipeline segments in addition to 48 previously reported that were operating at pressures not commensurate with their class locations. The utility said it has replaced or hydro tested eight of the 10 segments, which collectively represent 1.5 miles of transmission pipelines.

“The other two continue to operate at a reduced pressure commensurate with their current class location and longer-term action will be taken later this year,” PG&E said in its filing to the CPUC. Six of the segments are on part of the transmission line (300 A and B) running from the California-Arizona border to Northern California.

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