Legislation to improve the safety and security of pipelines finished its long road through the U.S. Congress last Thursday and was on its way to the president, who is expected to sign into law new rules for pipeline inspection and employee training, increased penalties for operating violations, establishment of a nationwide one-call system and protections for whistle-blowers (H.R.3609).

The measure, which like the Phoenix, rose from the wreckage of the broad energy bill, also includes research and development authorizations to improve pipe quality and various elements for the inspection, security and information control for pipelines. Passed by the house and senate during the closing days of a lame duck session, it was the only part of proposed comprehensive energy legislation to make it through the 107th Congress.

The energy bills produced by the two houses variously would have restructured the rules for the electric power industry, opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling and encouraged an Alaska gas pipeline, added new fuel mileage limits on vehicles and encouraged the use of ethanol in gasoline, repealed the Public Utility Holding Company Act, and provided incentives for domestic oil and gas development.

The key lies in the word “variously,” since the bill passed by the Senate, led by Democrats, included some of those elements and left out others, while the one passed by the Republican-led House had its own twists and turns on the controversial issues. Even the relatively harmless (politically) extension of the Price Anderson Act limiting liability of nuclear power plant operators, failed to make the cut, dropping by the wayside early last week.

All those good things, however, are expected to be back again next year, but the debate may go a little differently, given that the leadership in both houses and the committee chairmen will be Republican. (FERC may not be too unhappy that Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-CT, won’t be able to schedule any more of his FERC-bashing hearings under the new regime — see separate story, this issue).

The pipeline safety bill has had a life of its own. It was first introduced as separate legislation by the Clinton Administration in April, 2000 (see NGI, April 17, 2000), following on calls for action after the explosion of a gasoline pipeline in Bellingham, WA killed three persons in 1999. It got a boost from the August, 2000 explosion of the El Paso Natural Gas mainline near Carlsbad, NM which killed 11 members of an extended family.

Following the El Paso accident, the U.S. Transportation Department, which regulates pipeline safety, found the line had not been properly inspected in 48 years and had extensive corrosion. Rep. John Dingell, D-MI, ranking minority member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, was a leading proponent of the measure, sponsoring several studies showing oversight by the Transportation Department’s Office of Pipeline Safety was lax and the regulations were inadequate.

The pipeline safety legislation had been wrapped into the energy bill, and House and Senate energy bill conferees had agreed its provisions in September (see NGI, Sept. 16), but it reverted to a stand-alone posture for its unanimous last-minute sweep of both houses of Congress.

While the original proposed legislation had been met with screeches of outrage from the pipeline sector, it was toned down in its travels, to the point where Martin Edwards, vice president of legislative affairs for the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, could comment in the end: “I won’t say we’re in love with it, but we can live with it.”

The new law will provide for pipeline integrity inspections under which facilities with the highest risk factors will be given priority for completing inspections within a five-year period, which lawmakers interpret as meaning at least 50% of gas pipeline facilities need to be inspected within the next five years. All facilities must be examined within 10 years. Pipelines then must be re-examined again in seven years. Also the transportation secretary will be able to order an operator to fix a pipeline that has a potentially unsafe condition.

Other parts of the law will:

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