The Department of Transportation’s Office of Pipeline Safety(OPS) came under sharp attack yesterday on Capitol Hill, withcritics lashing out against the agency for its “poor record” ofensuring the safe operation of the hundreds of thousands of milesof natural gas and hazardous liquids pipelines that criss-cross thenation.

At a hearing before the Senate Commerce, Science andTransportation Committee, the families of three boys who died as aresult of a product pipeline explosion in Bellingham, WA, lastyear, the National Transportation Safety Board and even the DOTitself urged congressional lawmakers to take substantivelegislative action to provide for more thorough inspection ofinterstate pipelines by the federal government and states.

The families uniformly asked the Senate panel to pass pipelinesafety legislation that would impose stiffer fines on pipelines inthe event of spills and accidents, better protect pipelineemployees who become whistle-blowers and create a network ofregional advisory councils to help oversee the safety of gas andhazardous liquids lines. One father went a little bit further inhis request, suggesting that pipes be fined even when accidents arecaused by third-party damage and that they be shut down completelywhen a death occurs or a spill exceeds a certain level.

Committee Chairman Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) assured the familiesthe panel will “bend every effort” to mark up pipeline safetyreauthorization legislation and get it through the Senate thisyear. Since the pipeline explosion last June, a number of lawmakershave introduced bills, including McCain and practically the entireWashington delegation — Sen. Patty Murray (D) and Reps. JackMetcalf (R) and Jay Inslee (D). Sen. Slade Gorton (R-WA) is aco-sponsor of the McCain and Murray measures. The Clintonadministration also has introduced its own proposal.

“I think Sen. McCain’s bill forms a good foundation…..but Ialso believe that Sen. Murray’s bill as well as theadministration’s bill has a number of good provisions,” DOT’sInspector General Kenneth Mead told the committee. He said Murray’sproposal is “particularly good in encouraging states to have arole” in pipeline inspections. While he believes states should jointhe federal government in ensuring the safety of pipelines, Meadsaid he would “draw a distinction” at allowing the states to enactsafety regulations.

Sen. John Breaux (D-LA) was the lone supporter of maintainingjust a “national role” for pipeline inspection, arguing that tohave 50 different states overseeing pipe safety would be a “seriousmistake.” Also, he was one of the few champions of pipelines at thehearing, saying that they “have one of the best safety records.”

Bellingham Mayor Mark Asmundson agreed that a “balkanizedpatchwork” of state safety regulations would be counterproductive,but he believes cooperation between states and the federalgovernment on pipeline inspections is necessary. “There’s animportant role for states.”

The burden is on Congress to plug up the “Swiss cheese”standards on pipeline safety this year, said Rep. Inslee. “I thinkwe are at a very, very unique moment legislatively” on this issue.”We cannot punt [this task] to an agency,” he noted, adding thatCongress has done this for the past 20 years with unsuccessfulresults. “We have to do the heavy lifting in Congress.”

Inslee proposed that Congress approve federal certificationstandards for pipeline operators similar to those in the truckingand airlines industries. Lawmakers need to “look very carefully atnot just improving the steel, but the humans” also.

The OPS has “woefully failed” to comply with the mandatesestablished by Congress in previous pipeline safety reauthorizationbills, said the mother of an 18-year-old boy who died in theBellingham accident. So, it’s not enough for Congress to make”minor changes” to safety regulations, but rather it needs to takesubstantive action so that the pipeline industry is no longer”largely self regulated.”

As a result of an internal investigation, the DOT’s Mead said itfound the Research and Special Programs Administration (RSPA),which oversees the OPS, has been “at least five years behind” inmeeting the pipeline safety mandates of Congress. For example, theRSPA issued a notice of proposed rulemaking last month “five yearsafter the statutory due date,” he noted.

Moreover, the proposed rulemaking only addressed pipelineoperator standards for hazardous liquids pipeline; it ignored”inspections for over 300,000 miles of natural gas transmissionpipelines.” Proposed standards for gas lines won’t come out untileither later this year or early next year, Mead told the panel.

He further criticized the RSPA for maintaining unreliable dataon pipeline accidents and technology for identifying pipelinedefects. For example, while most hazardous liquids pipes can usesmart pigs to detect certain kinds of defects, such as corrosion,”we found that incredibly [the] RSPA does not have estimates [onhow many] natural gas pipelines that can be pigged,” he noted. “Oneof the largest natural gas pipeline companies [told me] that onlyabout 15% of their pipeline could accommodate pigs.”

While Mead took the RSPA to task for the long lead times inenacting safety regulations, John Hammerschmidt of the NationalTransportation Safety Board (NTSB) criticized it for largelyignoring many of the recommendations the NTSB has made over theyears with respect to training and testing of pipeline personnel.”Inadequate training continues to be a factor in pipelineaccidents,” he said, yet the RSPA largely disregards thesuggestions of the NTSB in its final rules.

Excavation damage continues to be a leading cause of pipelineaccidents, according to Hammerschmidt. “This issue is on the safetyboard’s ‘Most Wanted’ list.” In fact, in December 1997, the boardproposed 26 recommendations aimed at improving excavation-damageprevention.

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