House approves Shuster's overhaul of pipeline safety
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WASHINGTON -- Gas pipeline leaks and explosions over the last year and a half have led to death, destruction of homes and devastated neighborhoods throughout the nation, including in Allentown, Pa. Now, they have also led to congressional action -- in one chamber, so far.
A usually divided House came together Monday in a unanimous voice vote to pass a fuel-pipeline safety act that its sponsor, Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Blair, said would improve safety while reducing regulatory uncertainties that have kept industry from expanding and creating jobs.
"Recent pipeline incidents suggest there is room for improvement," Mr. Shuster said on the House floor. He said his bill would strengthen enforcement, keep the industry "on a short leash" and provide avenues for state and local employees to assist in federal inspections.
Yet the bill, in fact, scraps jobs in the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and cuts back maximum fines per violation from $2.5 million to $2 million. Mr. Shuster was unavailable to comment after Monday's House vote, but he has previously been critical of the pipeline safety agency and has declared his belief that industry expertise should guide pipeline safety.
Off Capitol Hill, the bill has support from industry officials and some safety advocates, but others found shortcomings.
"Unfortunately, the bill doesn't directly fix many of the problems," said Carl Weimer, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust based in Bellinigham, Wash. "It's more like, 'Let's study the problem for the next couple years and then decide what to do.'
"If they really wanted to do something, Congress would be supporting actual clear rules and regulations," he said in a phone interview Monday.
Mr. Shuster, meanwhile, has said his bill includes sweeping reforms that members of both parties were able to agree on. He and fellow negotiators who worked on the bill said their work was informed by the lessons of the recent tragedies around the country:
• In San Bruno, Calif., a San Francisco suburb, the lack of an automatic shutoff kept fires fueled for more than an hour after an explosion Sept. 9, 2010. Eight people were killed and 38 homes were destroyed.
• In Allentown, a thunderous gas explosion on Feb. 9 of this year killed five people, including a 4-month-old child, flattened two homes and burned a block and damaged more than 80 houses.
• In southwest Michigan, a leaking pipeline on July 26, 2010, spilled a massive amount of crude oil into a creek that feeds the Kalamazoo River. The Environmental Protection Agency estimated the spill at 1.14 million gallons, more than a third higher than the energy company's estimate of 843,000 gallons.
Those incidents led to bill provisions requiring testing to confirm maximum safe operating pressures, installation of automatic remote-control shutoffs and reviews of compliance standards for pipes under rivers.
Mr. Weimer noted that the bill fails to address requirements for replacing deteriorated old pipes, which contributed to the deadly Allentown blast. He also said it had no regulation of pipes traversing sparsely populated areas.
On the House floor, Mr. Shuster said his bill went a long way in adding safeguards. One provision would establish industry-funded regional training centers for local inspectors to study federal standards. Another section adds mishap reporting rules.
Mr. Shuster's bill, dubbed the Pipeline Safety, Regulatory Certainty and Job Creation Act, now heads to the Senate.
First Published December 13, 2011 12:00 am
