The US Congress is close to passing pipeline safety legislation. Action is overdue. But it's an election year, when politics can breed destructive surprises. And attention to a controversial energy bill might be distracting.
Congress is late reauthorizing the Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Act and Hazardous Liquid Pipeline Safety Act, which expired in September 2000. The Senate passed reauthorization bills last year. But 2001 ended with no passage of a companion House bill.
Lately, industry groups have voiced confidence that pipeline safety legislation will be enacted this year (OGJ, Jan. 21, 2002, p. 20). A bipartisan group of House members in December introduced the "Pipeline Infrastructure Protection to Enhance Security and Safety Act," a vote on which is possible soon now that Congress has reconvened. Jerald V. Halvorsen, president of the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA), welcomed the House bill as a sign that lawmakers will act on pipeline safety early in the year.
Faster work
The industry has been urging the government to work faster on pipeline safety. Last November, 14 company leaders and the heads of five trade associations sent a letter to Transportation Sec. Norman Mineta calling for passage of pipeline safety legislation and for coordinated action by his department and Congress.
The group said legislation should try to increase safety and build public confidence in pipelines, provide safety oversight by a fortified Office of Pipeline Safety (OPS), and recognize Department of Transportation rules on pipeline integrity and operator qualification. Associations signing the letter were American Petroleum Institute, American Gas Association, Association of Oil Pipe Lines, INGAA, and American Public Gas Association (OGJ, Jan. 7, 2002, p. 83).
Reauthorization of pipeline safety laws isn't the only government activity important to the pipeline industry that's behind schedule. Last September, the General Accounting Office told Congress that the OPS had acted on only 11 of 22 recommendations that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) made a decade earlier.
In response, the OPS said it would issue rules under the final set of NTSB recommendations by 2002's second half. But terrorist attacks in the US shifted OPS attention to security.
The industry has good reason to want an effective set of laws and regulations on pipeline safety. Much of the existing pipeline network has been in place for decades. Accidents have occurred; some of them have killed people. The need is great for vigorous inspection, thorough reporting, and effective rehabilitation. The need also is great for safe expansion of the network. Like anything having to do with hardware, energy, and public hazard, however, pipeline safety is a subject lush with potential for governmental excess.
No one questions the role of regulation in the US pipeline system-or the need for regulation more rigorous than exists now. Regulation under thorough standards and judicious law can assure that pipeline builders and operators-first-work safely and-next-compete fairly. It also can boost the public confidence essential to network growth. Hence the industry's efforts to move things along in Washington, DC.
Yet Congress should not, as has been suggested, fold pipeline safety into energy-policy legislation. The expediency would subject important safety initiatives now blessed with bipartisan support to a political churn that would do them no good. And it would submerge under broader controversies issues that deserve distinct public attention.
Useful guidelines
Congress should pass a stand-alone pipeline-safety bill that meshes with Transportation Department regulations. Lawmakers can find useful guidelines in a paper attached to the November industry letter to Mineta. The paper suggests funding OPS at "appropriate" levels, strengthening collaborative research and development, enhancing damage-prevention programs, increasing state-federal cooperation in inspections and investigations, and improving the security and quality of information reported to OPS and the public.
A unified industry supports congressional and administrative initiatives on pipeline safety and has offered constructive guidance. Legislation has bipartisan support. Everyone recognizes the need for action. A looming federal election and contentious energy bill are all that keep the timing from being perfect. Lawmakers shouldn't let them stand in the way of steps that so obviously would serve important national interests.
