Bipartisan Federal Legislators Motivated to Improve Pipeline Safety This Year

During a hearing today before the full Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, James Pates, Vice President of the National Pipeline Reform Coalition (NPRC), of which Environmental Defense is a founding member, testified that legislators need to change the current pipeline law in fundamental ways to see improvements in pipeline safety. Frank King, father of ten-year-old Wade King who died last June 10 in Bellingham, Washington from a gasoline pipeline rupture and explosion, testified that companies should receive “mandatory fines” following pipeline releases because current standards and their enforcement are insufficient to change pipeline operations

Nearly 4,000 releases from nearly 2 million miles of pipelines — more than one each day — were reported to the Office of Pipeline Safety (part of the US Department of Transportation) in the 1990s. These releases caused over 200 deaths, nearly 3,000 injuries, about $780 million in reported property damage, and spilled over 62 million gallons of oil and other hazardous liquids. The average amount spilled per liquid pipeline release has increased in recent years.

NPRC’s Pates, City Attorney for Fredericksburg, Virginia, which has lost its drinking water supply twice due to pipeline ruptures, provided rationales for several amendments to pipeline safety bill S. 2438, introduced by Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and S. 2409, the Administration’s bill. These amendments include the development of new federal pipeline standards where there are none (e.g., for leak detection), enabling states to regulate and enforce standards for interstate pipelines under certain conditions, and citizen advisory oversight of the industry and its regulators.

“While Senator McCain has been very helpful so far, he and his colleagues need to amend his bill substantially to ensure pipeline industry improvement. Because the federal Office of Pipeline Safety has not done its job well, the bill needs to set deadlines for new standards and enable states and communities to play a larger role overseeing pipelines,” said Pates.

“If my son’s name is going to be on this bill as Senator McCain has proposed, it must be tough enough to prevent future pipeline tragedies. If this means mandatory fines for pipeline ruptures, just as speeding on highways results in mandatory fines, so be it,” said Frank King.

“Pipelines have been under-regulated for too long, resulting in serious safety and environmental impacts that could have been avoided,” said Environmental Defense engineer Lois Epstein, a member of a federal committee on pipeline safety. “With a few key amendments, a bipartisan, pro-safety and pro-environment pipeline bill is possible this year.”