[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
PIPELINE SAFETY: PUBLIC AWARENESS AND EDUCATION
=======================================================================
(111-132)
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
RAILROADS, PIPELINES, AND HAZARDOUS MATERIALS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
July 21, 2010
__________
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
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COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota, Chairman
NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia, JOHN L. MICA, Florida
Vice Chair DON YOUNG, Alaska
PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
Columbia VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
JERROLD NADLER, New York FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
CORRINE BROWN, Florida JERRY MORAN, Kansas
BOB FILNER, California GARY G. MILLER, California
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas HENRY E. BROWN, Jr., South
GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi Carolina
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois
LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania SAM GRAVES, Missouri
BRIAN BAIRD, Washington BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania
RICK LARSEN, Washington JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York Virginia
MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois CONNIE MACK, Florida
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia
JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
HEATH SHULER, North Carolina MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma
MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York VERN BUCHANAN, Florida
HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentuckyd
CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania ANH ``JOSEPH'' CAO, Louisiana
JOHN J. HALL, New York AARON SCHOCK, Illinois
STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin PETE OLSON, Texas
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee TOM GRAVES, Georgia
LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
PHIL HARE, Illinois
JOHN A. BOCCIERI, Ohio
MARK H. SCHAUER, Michigan
BETSY MARKEY, Colorado
MICHAEL E. McMAHON, New York
THOMAS S. P. PERRIELLO, Virginia
DINA TITUS, Nevada
HARRY TEAGUE, New Mexico
JOHN GARAMENDI, California
HANK JOHNSON, Georgia
(ii)
?
SUBCOMMITTEE ON RAILROADS, PIPELINES, AND HAZARDOUS MATERIALS
CORRINE BROWN, Florida Chairwoman
DINA TITUS, Nevada BILL SHUSTER, Pennylvania
HARRY TEAGUE, New Mexico THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin
NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia JERRY MORAN, Kansas
JERROLD NADLER, New York GARY G. MILLER, California
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland HENRY E. BROWN, Jr., South
GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California Carolina
JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois
TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota, Vice SAM GRAVES, Missouri
Chair JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania
MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania LYNN A. WESTMORELND, Georgia
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
MARK H. SCHAUER, Michigan CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
BETSY MARKEY, Colorado VERN BUCHANAN, Florida
MICHAEL E. McMAHON, New York BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
THOMAS S. P. PERRIELLO, Virginia AARON SCHOCK, Illinois
PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon ANH ``JOSEPH'' CAO, Louisiana
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois PETE OLSON, Texas
BOB FILNER, California VACANCY
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa
RICK LARSEN, Washington
MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California
JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota
(ex officio)
(iii)
CONTENTS
Page
Summary of Subject Matter........................................ vi
TESTIMONY
Davis, Sam, General Manager and Chief Exective Officer, Lake
Apopka Natural Gas District, Winter Garden, Florida, on behalf
of the American Public Gas Association......................... 13
Kessler, Rick, Vice President of the Board of Directors, Pipeline
Safety Trust................................................... 13
Kipp, Bob, President, Common Ground Alliance..................... 13
Lidiak, Peter, Pipeline Director, American Petroleum Institute... 13
O'Rourke, Peter, Director of Energy Programs, National
Association of State Fire Marshals............................. 13
Quarterman, Hon. Cynthia, Administrator, Pipeline and Hazardous
Materials Safety Administration, U.S. Department of
Transportation................................................. 2
Tahamtani, Massoud, Director, Division of Utility and Railroad
Safety, Virginia State Corporation Commission, on behalf of the
National Association of Pipeline Safety Representatives........ 13
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Cohen, Hon. Steve, of Tennessee.................................. 32
Richardson, Hon. Laura, of California............................ 33
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES
Davis, Sam....................................................... 41
Kessler, Rick.................................................... 54
Kipp, Bob........................................................ 75
Lidiak, Peter.................................................... 93
O'Rourke, Peter.................................................. 107
Quarterman, Hon. Cynthia......................................... 115
Tahamtani, Massoud............................................... 152
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Davis, Sam, General Manager and Chief Exective Officer, Lake
Apopka Natural Gas District, Winter Garden, Florida, on behalf
of the American Public Gas Association, response to request for
information from the Subcommittee.............................. 52
Kessler, Rick, Vice President of the Board of Directors, Pipeline
Safety Trust, response to request for information from the
Subcommittee................................................... 70
Kipp, Bob, President, Common Ground Alliance, response to request
for information from the Subcommittee.......................... 90
Lidiak, Peter, Pipeline Director, American Petroleum Institute,
response to request for information from the Subcommittee...... 101
O'Rourke, Peter, Director of Energy Programs, National
Association of State Fire Marshals, response to request for
information from the Subcommittee.............................. 111
Quarterman, Hon. Cynthia, Administrator, Pipeline and Hazardous
Materials Safety Administration, U.S. Department of
Transportation, response to request for information from the
Subcommittee................................................... 124
Tahamtani, Massoud, Director, Division of Utility and Railroad
Safety, Virginia State Corporation Commission, on behalf of the
National Association of Pipeline Safety Representatives........ 158
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PIPELINE SAFETY: PUBLIC AWARENESS AND EDUCATION
----------
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous
Materials,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:36 p.m., in
room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Corrine Brown
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Ms. Brown of Florida. The Subcommittee on Railroads,
Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials will come to order. The
Subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony on Pipeline
Safety: Public Awareness and Education. This hearing is the
fourth in a series of oversight hearings the Subcommittee will
hold as we look toward reauthorizing the Department's pipeline
safety program.
The Pipeline Safety Improvement Act of 2002 required each
owner or operator of a gas or hazardous liquid pipeline
facility to develop and implement a public education program.
Each program should educate the public on the possible
hazardous associated with unintended releases from the pipeline
facility, the physical indications that such a release may have
occurred, what steps should be taken for public safety in the
event of a pipeline release, and how to report such an event.
The program also had to educate the public on the use of a One
Call notification system prior to evacuation and other damage-
prevention activities.
In addition, the 2002 law required each owner or operator
of a gas or hazardous liquid pipeline facility to review its
existing public education program for effectiveness and modify
the program as necessary. The completed program had to include
activities to advise affected municipalities, school districts,
businesses, and residents of pipeline facility locations, and
be submitted to the Secretary for review.
On May 5th, with the strong support of our Subcommittee,
the House passed House Resolution 1278, a bill to designate the
month of April as National Safe Digging Month. The Pipeline and
Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, along with many
States and stakeholders across our Nation, are working together
to encourage all homeowners and contractors to call 811 before
they dig.
According to PHMSA, the One Call notification system has
helped reduce the number of incidents caused by excavation
damage, from 57 percent in 2004 to 35 percent in 2009. Clearly
these numbers speak for themselves. Indeed, it is extremely
important to call 811, the Call Before You Dig line, and it is
such an easy way for individuals and companies to save lives,
the environment, our Nation's infrastructure, and even save
money and investments.
We have undoubtedly made some positive steps in educating
the public about the dangers of underground utilities; however,
the verdict is still out on the operators' education program
and whether or not they will be effective. I hope today's
hearing will shed some light on the needs of the program and to
ensure that these programs are working correctly, and that
communities and first responders are getting the information
they need to prepare for an accident.
With that, I want to welcome today's panelists and thank
you for joining us. I am looking forward to hearing their
testimony.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Before I yield to Mr. Shuster, I ask
the Members to be given 14 days to revise and extend their
remarks and to permit the submission of additional statements
and materials for Members and witnesses. Without objection, so
ordered.
Ms. Brown of Florida. I now yield to Mr. Shuster for his
opening statement.
Mr. Shuster. I thank the Chairwoman, and welcome to the
Administrator for being here again. We will have to set up a
desk in the back for you so you don't have to traipse from
downtown every week. It is good to have you.
I would like unanimous consent to submit my full statement
for the record. I will keep it short because we have talked to
the Administrator a number of times on these issues and others
over the last year.
My one question I will have today at some point for you or
for your staff to research it, there are some States, some
government entities out there that have exempted themselves or
are exempted from the 811, Call Before You Dig. And I just
wondered what States were that? Is that actually happening?
Because it just doesn't make any sense to me at all that
anybody would exempt themselves because of something so simple,
and something that could avoid accidents and bad situations.
So that is what I submit for the record for your staff, and
maybe you can get back to me on that.
It is good to have you here today, and I yield back.
Ms. Brown of Florida. I am pleased to introduce the
Honorable Cynthia Quarterman, who is the Administrator of the
U.S. Department of Transportation, Pipeline and Hazardous
Materials Safety Administration.
I want to welcome you, and I want to thank you. I think
this is your fourth time coming before the Committee. So that
is--I mean, thank you so very much, and the floor is yours.
TESTIMONY OF CYNTHIA QUARTERMAN, ADMINISTRATOR, PIPELINE AND
HAZARDOUS MATERIALS SAFETY ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
TRANSPORTATION
Ms. Quarterman. Thank you for having me again, Chairwoman
Brown, Ranking Member Shuster.
Mr. Shuster. Are you sure about that?
Ms. Quarterman. Absolutely, it is my pleasure.
Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to
appear here today. Secretary LaHood, the employees of PHMSA and
the entire Department share public safety as their top
priority. The Department holds a strong commitment to
preventing spills on all pipelines through regulation,
oversight, public awareness and education.
PHMSA works with a broad stakeholder community to shape
many of our public awareness, education and damage-prevention
initiatives. With the help of its stakeholders, PHMSA has made
great progress in reducing the number of serious pipeline
incidents by 50 percent over the last 20 years. PHMSA aims to
continue this downward trend in pipeline incidents through
increased efforts in outreach and public awareness programs,
State funding and enforcement.
For years PHMSA has been at the forefront of finding
effective solutions to prevent excavation damages to
underground pipelines. Since 2002, PHMSA has provided over $2.2
million in funding assistance to the Common Ground Alliance to
support the 811 educational outreach campaign. This year the
United States Senate, the House of Representatives and the
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood all promoted the importance
of calling before you dig by designating April as National Safe
Digging Month, and I thank this Committee for your work on
that.
In addition, at PHMSA's urging, 40 States, including those
represented by Members of this Subcommittee, also followed suit
with a statewide Safe Digging Month proclamation. In support of
these efforts, PHMSA is encouraging States to help spread the
damage prevention message. PHMSA's One Call and State Damage
Prevention grant programs fund improvements in State and
community damage-prevention efforts. Since 1995, PHMSA has
awarded over $14 million in One Call grants. An additional $4
million in State Damage Prevention grants have been provided to
States since 2008.
Accompanying its grant programs, PHMSA is preparing local
officials to be public education resources within their
communities and helping citizens learn how they can protect
themselves and pipelines.
PHMSA has implemented many nonregulatory programs that
contribute to public awareness, including the National Pipeline
Mapping System, the Community Assistance and Technical Service
Representatives, the Pipelines and Informed Planning Alliance,
operator public awareness programs, Technical Assistance
grants, and direct access to information on its stakeholders
communication Web site.
In addition, PHMSA's relationship with the National
Association of State Fire Marshals and the International
Association of Fire Chiefs has resulted in the availability of
training materials that assist first responders in responding
safely and efficiently to and effectively to pipeline
emergencies.
While PHMSA has accomplished many goals with its State
partners and other stakeholders in pipeline safety, it is
important that States continue to recognize the role that
effective and fair enforcement plays in reducing excavation
damage to underground infrastructure. PHMSA is developing a
rulemaking to pursue administrative civil penalties against
excavators who violate damage-prevention requirements and
damage a pipeline in the absence of effective enforcement by
the State where it occurred. The hope is that this rulemaking,
along with all the current public awareness initiatives, will
highlight the importance for all stakeholders to call 811
before digging, to respect the marks identifying the locations
of underground utilities, and to practice safe digging
techniques.
PHMSA looks forward to increasing its efforts in national
and State damage prevention and public awareness programs, and
working with Congress to yield further results in pipeline
safety.
Thank you. I would be pleased to answer any questions you
may have.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Thank you.
Mr. Walz----
Mr. Walz. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Brown of Florida. --for opening statements and any
questions that you may have.
Mr. Walz. Thank you very much, and I thank the Ranking
Member.
Ms. Quarterman, I, too, want to express my thanks. You have
been here, and incredibly accessible to each of us, to help us
learn about this important issue. I look forward to every one
of these. I learn something new. I think this issue of
educating the public is--we have made strides in, there is no
doubt about it, from the One Calls and the institute. Our
pipeline operators have made a great effort of that.
I just have a couple of questions as we are trying to get
this out and let the public know on this. I am going to go down
this line of questioning since 2002 in the Pipeline Safety
Improvement Act, and there were some things that were supposed
to have happened with the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. And
one of the questions we had in talking with the staff, did
PHMSA publish the recommended practice in the Notice of
Proposed Rulemaking or in the rulemaking docket so the public
could see that?
Ms. Quarterman. And now you are referring to the public
awareness?
Mr. Walz. That is right.
Ms. Quarterman. That rulemaking process was developed with
input by PHMSA and NAPSR, which are our State partners. During
the rulemaking process I believe that it was made available.
The recommended practice was actually published by the API, the
American Petroleum Institute, and they made it available to the
public on their Web site during that period for free.
Mr. Walz. If I am right on that, there are 69 API standards
in pipeline safety and 151 standards in HAZMAT. We looked into
it. It costs $93 per standard to see that. So for the public to
get it, it would be several thousand dollars.
Ms. Quarterman. It would be quite expensive for them to get
all the standards.
Mr. Walz. Well, how do we do that if this is about
educating them and about making it accessible? Can we do better
on that regard?
Ms. Quarterman. Well, I think this is a governmentwide
issue, to be candid with you. There is a statute that exists,
the Congress promulgated, encouraging government agencies to
use these national standards, these industry standards. And the
administration executive branch through OMB has issued several
guidelines encouraging, again, the Federal Government to use
and adopt these standards. There are, as you mentioned, several
within PHMSA that have been adopted. We are in quite a few
working groups right now developing many national standards.
However, as----
Mr. Walz. Do we need to do something to help? Because I
don't think anything sinister in this; I think it is just a
case of trying to disseminate it to the public in the easiest,
most cost-effective manner. If it is a transparency issue to
try and get it out, and if it is about educating them, is there
anything we can do that you can see that could help do that?
Because in the case here, I don't have any particular question
towards the standards themselves; it is just about the access
to the public to get them.
Ms. Quarterman. Well, it might be useful to have a panel,
should we say a committee, put together by Congress to look
into this issue how we might make these standards more publicly
available, because I agree with you, it would be great if they
were more accessible to everyone.
Mr. Walz. I appreciate that.
I have no further questions, and I yield back, Madam Chair.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Mr. Shuster.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you.
I just wanted, again, to reiterate my first questions. I
don't know if you have the answer to it, but if staff could
send this over, you know, what groups, who has exempted
themselves from the 811, I would certainly like to know that.
If you get that to me, that would be great.
The second question or concern of mine that the Pipeline
Safety Trust claims that they helped PHMSA develop the
evaluation criteria used to select recipients for your
Technical Assistant grants, and the Pipeline Safety Trust was
awarded one of these grants. And is that a conflict of interest
for a group to participate in the criterion evaluation and then
receive funding?
Ms. Quarterman. Well, I am not aware of that situation. I--
that would be something that would be of concern to me, I would
have to say. But I don't know the specifics of that situation.
I would have to go and look at that.
Mr. Shuster. Sure.
Ms. Quarterman. As to the exemption question, there are
many States that have in it their laws exemptions to the One
Call law. It is my belief that those exemptions should be
eliminated. Very recently the State of Maryland was adopting a
new One Call law, and there was an exemption planned for the
Department of Transportation. We did have conversations with
them, and that exemption was removed from the law.
Different States have different exemptions. Some of them
relate to farmers, some of them relate to the Department of
Transportation, others relate to the railroads. I would like to
see all of those exemptions removed.
Mr. Shuster. And I guess my concern is does anybody really
not make the call that you know of? There may have been
exemptions in there, and I am not a big proponent of the
Federal Government having sweeping laws necessarily, but it
just seems to me to be just plain stupid to go digging without
calling someone and saying, is there a gas line, or is there a
cable or something here.
If you could get back to me, I would appreciate it.
Ms. Quarterman. Unfortunately there were three incidents in
the past month where four people were killed. Now, we are still
in the process of investigating that. We don't know if everyone
called in all of those instances, and perhaps the markings were
wrong. That is still under investigation. But in my view, all
of those deaths were absolutely preventable if the One Call law
was complete, and people did everything that they were
responsible for doing.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Mr. Nadler.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you.
I want to follow up on some of the questions asked by Mr.
Walz. It seems to me it is an awfully closed-door process in
which, if I want to know what the regulations are, I read the
PHMSA regs, and it refers me to a private organization's regs,
which will cost me money to get, and a large amount of money.
Secondly, the regulations are developed by these private
organizations with a PHMSA representative, but the public is
excluded; am I correct?
Ms. Quarterman. Well, usually both at the State and PHMSA
representatives are involved in these----
Mr. Nadler. The State and PHMSA representatives, but if I
want to go there and observe----
Ms. Quarterman. The public could be involved in the process
if they wanted to, or if they wanted to become a part of the
process, but, you know, from our perspective our responsibility
is to represent the public.
Mr. Nadler. But none of the proceedings are published. None
of the proceedings or minutes of the meetings are published. If
you want to see the--no drafts are published, although a draft
may be published, but refers to the industry group, the API,
for instance, regs or standards, which you have to purchase at
an expensive amount, which really closes out everybody,
correct?
Ms. Quarterman. With respect to the particular standard
that we are referring to here, it was made public, but that is
not----
Mr. Nadler. No, no, no. When you say it was made public, it
was made public only if I purchase the stuff from the API.
Ms. Quarterman. Not with respect to the public awareness
regulation. This was made public on the API Web site at the
time the regulation was----
Mr. Nadler. It was made public for a short period of time
during the comment.
Ms. Quarterman. Right.
Mr. Nadler. I can't get it. If I don't have a lot of money,
I can't get it. I can't read the Federal Register and get it.
Ms. Quarterman. My understanding is it is no longer
publicly available, so if you wanted it now, you would have to
purchase it.
Mr. Nadler. What excuse is there for keeping this that way?
Why shouldn't this all be public? Why should I have to purchase
it?
Ms. Quarterman. Well, PHMSA can't make that happen.
Mr. Nadler. Excuse me, I think PHMSA can. The law says
that--the law you quoted is that you are encouraged to involve
these private groups, but you are not required to. And I think
that you could require that all this be public.
Ms. Quarterman. I would have to talk to my lawyers about
that. I think they might disagree with that, but we would be
happy--if we could force it to happen, we would do it.
Mr. Nadler. Would you get back to us with your lawyers'
opinion on that? Because I think it is within the jurisdiction
of the agency to require that this be available. Certainly the
normal--the normal proceeding is that a regulatory agency such
as PHMSA can make your own regulation. That regulation could--
with a proper rulemaking procedure, that regulation could
provide that all of these regulations be available publicly,
and that insofar as the regulation references an API or some
other private thing, that that be available publicly, in fact
that it be right there. I see no reason why you couldn't do
that.
Ms. Quarterman. We will investigate it.
Mr. Nadler. OK. Well, I hope you do investigate it, because
when the agency issues a rule that says that the programs have
to be based on a private group, in this case API's recommended
practice 1162, that recommended practice 1162 ought to be
quoted in its entirety right there. Anything else is really
excluding the public, and especially in this time period when
there is a lot of, shall we say, skepticism about private
groups, especially groups dealing with safety in the aftermath
of BP and everything else. To require someone who wants to know
what the safety regulations are to pay $100,000, which is what
it would take to get most of this information, might lead some
people to think that not everything is totally open.
So I hope you will take this under advisement and will get
back to us either stating that you will institute a rulemaking
procedure to make it all open and available on the Federal Web
site or whatever without having people having to come up with
money, or give us a good legal reason, a real legal reason, why
it is not within the jurisdiction of the agency to do, which I
believe it is.
Ms. Quarterman. Well, I would certainly be supportive of
having everything available to the public for free. So if it is
feasible, then it will happen.
Mr. Nadler. Very good. Thank you.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Mr. Schauer.
Mr. Schauer. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for being
with us.
Just want to talk a little bit more about the standard for
public education programs and involvement of industry
representatives versus public representatives. And I know in
June of 2004, PHMSA published the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
requiring each pipeline operator to develop and implement
proposed education programs based on provisions of the American
Petroleum Institute's recommended practice 1162. It sounds like
a multi-industry task force was comprised with representatives
of hazardous liquid, gas transmission, gas distribution,
pipeline operators, trade organizations. So I guess the real
question is was there an opportunity for the general public to
be a part of that standard? Has PHMSA voted on the final
standard? And what was the ratio of PHMSA representatives on
this multi-industry task force compared to industry
representation?
The point is if these are programs to educate the public,
we need to make sure that the public is there at the table and
this, again, isn't something that is just designed by industry.
So I am just curious about your response to that.
Ms. Quarterman. I don't know the numbers of people from
each part of the public, or private or government. That is
something we can look up and get back to you on, absolutely.
And I agree the public should be represented, and it is PHMSA's
role to represent the public.
Mr. Schauer. Well, if we sort of think about this, and I
think sometimes the government forgets that, and sometimes
industry forgets, industry is there to make a profit, certainly
you would think that acting in a safe, responsible manner would
be good for their profits. But as we saw from BP, they cut
corners and put profits before safety.
We need to make sure that the end users, consumers, the
public is really engaged and certainly in these public
education programs aimed at safety. So I would urge you to take
that into account in future rulemaking.
Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Ms. Napolitano.
Mrs. Napolitano. Sorry about that, Madam Chair.
I had a couple of questions, Ms. Quarterman, in regard to
pipeline oil safety in my district, specifically to a major oil
pipeline and oil tank leak that has been under investigation
and continued remediation for decades. Polluter: the Air Force.
In your experience does the public sector or private sector
oil operators do a better jobs of education, protection and
remediation? What factors contribute to this? And what can we
do to be able to impress upon any of the services how critical
it is to clean up their own mess?
Ms. Quarterman. I am not familiar with the particular
instance that you are--I think I have heard something about it.
I believe it is the military----
Mrs. Napolitano. Correct. It is a transfer station. It is
transportation related.
Ms. Quarterman. I am sorry, could you repeat your question
exactly?
Mrs. Napolitano. Well, the public sector, the private
sector, all operators do a better jobs of education, protection
and remediation. What contributes to this? I know, because I
have been on there particular issue for over 20-some-odd years,
and it is like pulling hen's teeth to get the Armed Forces to
do anything that is going to protect the health and safety of
the community. This is a proven carcinogen in that particular
leak.
Ms. Quarterman. Well, with respect to public awareness, our
regulations require that operators of hazardous liquid
pipelines put in place public awareness programs that inform
the public about the location of pipelines or storage
facilities, what products are there, what they should be
looking for in case of a leak, how they should respond if
something were to happen.
Mrs. Napolitano. Would you hold that thought?
Ms. Quarterman. Sure.
Mrs. Napolitano. Because it took us about 10 years to try
to get an open meeting with the Department of Defense on this
particular tank farm. They would not even allow us to go on
site to inspect, or anybody else. So maybe apprise to the
public sector, but not--I mean, to the private sector but not
to the public.
Ms. Quarterman. I don't know if we have oversight of this
particular facility if it is defense related----
Mrs. Napolitano. It was.
Ms. Quarterman. --as opposed to transportation related.
Mrs. Napolitano. Correct.
Ms. Quarterman. But----
Mrs. Napolitano. Maybe I can take it up with you later.
That is not a problem.
The second one is the remediation of selenium that is being
found in some of the discharges to the remediation wells and
has forced the shutdown of 13 of the 23 remediation wells.
But what can the oil companies and the pipeline companies
do when there is no course to be able to continue their
remediation?
Ms. Quarterman. Remediation of?
Mrs. Napolitano. Selenium and carcinogens.
Ms. Quarterman. Well, they should--obviously they
areresponsible for cleaning up those spills under some Federal
regulation.
Mrs. Napolitano. Maybe I can take that up with you and get
further information.
Ms. Quarterman. Yes.
Mrs. Napolitano. The other question that I had was the
following a serious pipeline accident in 2007, NTSB made a
safety recommendation to PHMSA to initiate a program to
evaluate pipeline operators' public education programs,
including pipeline operation self-evaluation of effectiveness
of the public education programs. It is our understanding that
PHMSA wanted to wait until after of June 2010 this year, which
has already passed, to have a better understanding of the
strengths and weaknesses of the existing public awareness
requirements after reviewing operator effectiveness
evaluations.
Has PHMSA reviewed the operation effective evaluations, and
does PHMSA plan to respond to NTSB safety recommendations, and
can this Subcommittee be made aware of those findings?
Ms. Quarterman. Absolutely we are in the process of
responding to that NTSB recommendation. There was an evaluation
work group that was held on June 30th of this year to go over
what the States and PHMSA together should do going forward in
terms of evaluating the public awareness programs that the
companies have had now for years of use of their public
awareness programs. We would like them to do an evaluation of
what they have done so far, and then beginning in the fall, we
will start with our State partners inspecting the evaluation
that the companies have done of their public awareness program.
We are already on--whenever we go out for an inspection, we do
an evaluation of their public awareness program, but this is
sort of an add-on, sort of a look-back of what they have done
so far.
Mrs. Napolitano. Is this self-reporting?
Ms. Quarterman. Well, they do an evaluation, and we will
review what they have done.
Mrs. Napolitano. But do you actually physically look at the
actual delivery of that program delivery?
Ms. Quarterman. Well, we look at the plan, we look at the
evaluation of the plan, and then we determine whether or not to
give them a violation based on what they have or have not done.
Now, if there has been an incident where it is obvious that
something in the plan failed, and that may be the case in some
of the recent incidents where there were problems with public
awareness plans, then they would, of course, get a violation as
a result of that.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Thank you.
Ms. Titus.
Ms. Titus. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and thank you for
joining us again today.
I just want to ask you a few questions about the Technical
Assistance Grant program. As I understand it, that was part of
the original Pipeline Safety Act of 2002, but the first round
of grants didn't go out until September of 2009, but when they
did go out, they were successful. A number of independent
communities across the country were able to hire technical
advisors to help them assess just what the pipes were that were
running through there, how to keep them safe, and what to do in
case they weren't.
I also understand now you are about to do maybe a second
round of these grants. I wonder if you could just address for
us some questions about how this process is going to work. Some
of those questions you might consider, are we sure we have the
funding, is that clear? Are we going forward with the funding?
It is going to be reauthorized first?
Second, as you look at the second round, are you
considering any alterations to the application process, like
maybe raising the cap on the amount of the grants or removing
the limitation on funding sources for the grant? Is that part
of the process?
Third, is there any better effort to do public outreach and
promotion so people know that these grants are available?
And finally, I think this is going to be brought up in
later testimony, but since it is the reverse order, I will ask
you now. There is some rumor out there that some pipeline
projects are going to be part of some of the applications from
municipal governments where the law strictly says that those
kinds of pipeline projects are not what is intended to be
funded by this money.
If you could address those things for us generally, I would
appreciate it.
Ms. Quarterman. Absolutely. The Pipeline Safety Improvement
Act of 2002 did authorize the TAG, Technical Assistance Grant
program, we call them TAG grant programs. The first
appropriations for that program were not until fiscal 2009.
There were some initial monies that were able to be brought to
bear to do some initial pilot projects. Beginning in fiscal
2009, we actually got a million dollars appropriated for that
program, and I think the limitation is $50,000 per grantee. The
first round, close--there was a million dollars appropriated to
the program. Close to a million dollars was made available for
grantees in that program.
We are right now in the middle of the next year's review
for fiscal year 2010. We have received--I forgot how many, but
numerous applications for that program, and we are in the
process of reviewing those applications for announcements
before the end of the fiscal year. So we are in the middle of
the process right now, so I can't tell you about any particular
awardee at this point.
Ms. Titus. Well, is it a major consideration of yours to be
sure that these awards are in keeping with the original----
Ms. Quarterman. Oh, absolutely. They won't be going----
Ms. Titus. And do you have any concern about the future
funding of these grants?
Ms. Quarterman. It is in the President's budget for fiscal
year 2011. Obviously we are waiting to see what happens with
that, but it is in the President's request.
Ms. Titus. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Ms. Brown of Florida. I just have a follow-up to that
question also. How much--did you say those grants were for a
million dollars, the awardees?
Ms. Quarterman. There was a million dollars appropriated
for the grants, and I think each of them could be up to $50,000
apiece. And the final award was 900-something thousand dollars,
so close to a million dollars.
Ms. Brown of Florida. That seems to be a very small amount
considering the magnitude of the program, the need for the
program. Did you all request more?
Ms. Quarterman. We--I wasn't here then, so I can't really
answer that question. I can research it for you. I don't know
what was requested.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Well, how effective do you think the
program is? Have you all evaluated the program?
Ms. Quarterman. We haven't evaluated it. So far it has only
been through 1 fiscal year, and I haven't had a summary of what
the results were so far.
I think the idea for it is fantastic. And it may be, as the
Member suggested, we need to do more to publicize it to get
more communities to come forward and ask for monies, and we
will work on that, absolutely.
Ms. Brown of Florida. You said have you received numerous
applications, though?
Ms. Quarterman. Yes, we have.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Do you know how many applications you
all have received?
Ms. Quarterman. I know in fiscal 2009, we had 21 grantees.
For this fiscal year I don't know how many applications we have
gotten, but I know there are a lot.
Ms. Brown of Florida. OK. On the second panel that is
coming up, there was a discussion about the Governors-appointed
Pipeline Safety Advisory Committee to increase public awareness
and education, and it seems as if your agency has not promoted
it. Can you tell us why, since it was part of a 2002
authorization?
Ms. Quarterman. I am sorry, I am not familiar with that. I
will have to get back to you on that.
Ms. Brown of Florida. OK. Well, would you all get back to
us in answer to that?
Ms. Quarterman. Yes, sure.
Ms. Brown of Florida. How many inspectors does DOT have on
duty today to conduct inspections?
Ms. Quarterman. We have 135--under the authorization, we
have slots for 135 inspection enforcement personnel. We
actually have in our budget 136 personnel. I believe we have
102 on board, and have offers outstanding or accepted offers to
another 18 or so, and then another 6 are in interview, but that
information is probably about a month old. So hopefully we will
have even more people coming in.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Has PHMSA taken any enforcement
action against pipeline operators for failing to implement an
effective public education program as prescribed by the
regulations?
Ms. Quarterman. I would have to get back to you on that as
well.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Also, have any States taken any
enforcement action against an operator for failing to comply
with the Federal regulations regarding public awareness
programs. So would you have to get back with me on that also, I
guess?
Ms. Quarterman. Yes.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Are there any additional questions?
Do you have any additional comments that you want to make?
Ms. Quarterman. If I might, I would like to recognize the
staff of PHMSA, the pipeline staff. At the end of the hearing
several months ago now, I called to the attention the career
folks who work for me, and I just want to say that we have a
wonderful group of career people who are extremely dedicated to
pipeline safety working for us, and I just want to let them
know that we appreciate all they have done, and I appreciate
it.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Well, thank you for your leadership.
This is a trying time for us, making sure that we be very
proactive in dealing with our responsibilities. I don't want
what happened with the Horizon Deepwater to happen to our
Committee and we are wondering, oh, we should have had this in
place, or we should have made sure that we had the regulations
in place or the inspections. So I appreciate your forward
thinking and working with the Committee. I am sure we will
present to the Congress a reauthorization bill that will cover
the things that we need to cover in our reauthorization. So
thank you for your leadership.
Ms. Quarterman. Thank you.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Panel 2.
I am pleased to introduce the second panel of witnesses. We
have with us Mr. Rick Kessler, vice president of the Board of
Directors of the Pipeline Safety Trust.
And we have Mr. Massoud Tahamtani. Help me out here; what
is your name?
Mr. Tahamtani. Tahamtani.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Tahamtani.
Mr. Tahamtani. Tahamtani.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Welcome. Director of the Division of
Utilities and Railroad Safety of the Virginia State Corporation
Commission, on behalf of the National Association of Pipeline
Safety Representatives.
And we have Mr. Bob Kipp, president of the Common Ground;
and Mr. Peter O'Rourke, Director of Energy Programs for the
National Association of State Fire Marshals. And we have Mr.
Sam Davis, general manager and CEO of the Lake Apopka--in my
area--Natural Gas District in Winter Garden, Florida, on behalf
of the American Public Gas Association. And finally, Mr. Peter
Lidiak--what is that last name?
Mr. Lidiak. Lidiak.
Ms. Brown of Florida. OK. Pipeline director of the American
Petroleum Institute.
Welcome. We are very pleased to have all of you here with
us this afternoon. But first let me remind each of you under
the Committee rules oral statements must be limited to 5
minutes, and your entire statement will appear in the record,
and, of course, we will have time for questioning.
Mr. Kessler.
TESTIMONY OF RICK KESSLER, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF
DIRECTORS, PIPELINE SAFETY TRUST; MASSOUD TAHAMTANI, DIRECTOR,
DIVISION OF UTILITY AND RAILROAD SAFETY, VIRGINIA STATE
CORPORATION COMMISSION, ON BEHALF OF NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF
PIPELINE SAFETY REPRESENTATIVES; BOB KIPP, PRESIDENT, COMMON
GROUND ALLIANCE; PETER O'ROURKE, DIRECTOR OF ENERGY PROGRAMS,
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF STATE FIRE MARSHALS; SAM DAVIS, GENERAL
MANAGER AND CEO, LAKE APOPKA NATURAL GAS DISTRICT, WINTER
GARDEN, FLORIDA, ON BEHALF OF AMERICAN PUBLIC GAS ASSOCIATION;
AND PETER LIDIAK, PIPELINE DIRECTOR, AMERICAN PETROLEUM
INSTITUTE
Mr. Kessler. Chairwoman Brown, and Ranking Member Shuster,
Members of the Subcommittee, good afternoon, and thank you for
allowing me the honor of testifying at this hearing. My name is
Rick Kessler. I am here today in my role as vice president of
the Pipeline Safety Trust, the Nation's leading nonprofit
organization dedicated to improving the safety of our country's
pipeline system.
Overall we believe the public has the right to know about
the safety of pipelines affecting communities, and that
providing this information is good for the public, good for the
environment, and ultimately good for the pipeline companies who
will benefit from having better informed citizens living near
their facilities. Greater transparency in all aspects of
pipeline safety will lead to increased awareness, involvement,
review, and ultimately safety. That is why we strongly believe
Congress should make citizen right-to-know provisions a top
priority for inclusion in the next reauthorization.
Over the last 8 years, PHMSA has done a pretty good job of
increasing transparency for many aspects of pipeline safety.
One of the true successes has been PHMSA's rapid implementation
of the 2006 Act's enforcement transparency section. Now
affected communities can log on to the PHMSA web site and
review enforcement actions regarding local pipelines.
We would like to see PHMSA go even farther to create a web-
based system to allow public access to specific inspection
information about pipelines, including when PHMSA inspected a
given pipeline, types of inspections performed, what was found,
and how concerns were addressed. Just as Congress required
PHMSA to institute enforcement transparency in the 2006 Act,
the Trust urges Congress to require similar inspection
transparency this year. But other information must be more
readily available, too, including information about high-
consequence areas and emergency response plans.
In response to the latter, while onshore oil pipeline
operators are required to prepare spill response plans, to our
knowledge, the plans are not public documents and certainly
aren't easily available documents. Further, the process to
develop these plans is closed to the public. This must be
fixed.
The BP Gulf of Mexico disaster illuminated not only the
last point, but also the dicey practice of Federal agencies
incorporating into the regulation standards developed by the
very entities they oversee. Like MMS, PHMSA incorporated into
its regulations standards developed by organizations made up in
whole or in part of industry representatives, approximately 85
in all.
Clearly the pipeline industry has considerable knowledge
and expertise in certain areas that must be tapped. They must
be tapped to draft standards that are technically correct and
can be implemented efficiently. But when a regulatory agency
needs to adopt industry-developed standards 85 times, it's kind
of a red flag that the agency lacks the resources and expertise
to develop these standards on its own.
Even more outrageous, once the standards are incorporated
into Federal taxpayer-funded regulations, they remain the
property of the standards-setting organization. So if a citizen
wants to review the standards in a U.S. Government regulation,
they actually have to buy a copy from the private organization
that drafted them. Prices for these documents, which again are
part of a U.S. Government taxpayer-financed regulation, range
from just below $100 to nearly $1,000. It is just wrong, and,
of course, the expense discourages citizen review and
participation in the process.
Now, I know you share our view, Madam Chair, as do many of
your colleagues on both sides of the aisle and Administrator
Quarterman. We think this can easily and must be remedied in
statute in the next reauthorization.
Moving on, over the past year and a half, PHMSA finally
started implementing the Community TAG Grant program authorized
in 2002. Overall, despite the unacceptably long delay in
implementation, we view the first round of this new grant
program generally as a huge success. However, ongoing funding
for these grants isn't clear, so the Trust asks the Committee
to ensure the reauthorization of these grants, consider raising
the cap on the amount of an individual grant, remove the
limitation on funding sources for the grants, and, most
importantly, do whatever is necessary to ensure funds are
appropriated.
Additionally, there were mistakes made by PHMSA with
awarding grants not meeting the congressional intent of the
program either in terms of qualifying recipients or use of the
funds. In creating the grant program, Congress explicitly
excluded for-profit entities to ensure the program's monies
reached its intended audience of local governments and
nonprofit citizen groups, not pipeline companies. Congress also
specifically defined and limited the use of those funds to
scientific analysis and promotion of public participation.
That some municipally owned companies are trying to exploit
a possible loophole in the law to subsidize their own
operations unfairly at the expense of local governments,
legitimate citizen groups, and competitor companies
disqualified from receiving such funding is shameful. It is
sad, but we have to ask Congress to clarify in statute that
this grant program is not to fund, and it was never supposed to
fund, the activities of any pipeline operator, public or
private.
I see my time is running out, so let me just conclude by
thanking you again. I look forward to answering your questions,
and also look forward to working with this Committee, both
sides of the aisle, and Congress on the authorization.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Next.
Mr. Tahamtani. Madam Chair Brown, Ranking Member Shuster,
Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to
discuss our role in support of pipeline safety. I am testifying
today on behalf of the National Association of Pipeline Safety
Representatives. NAPSR, for short, is a nonprofit organization
of State pipeline safety personnel. As partners of the PHMSA,
we serve to support, encourage and enhance pipeline safety in
the country.
Since the Pipeline Safety Act was signed into law in 1968,
States have been acting as certified agents for implementing
and enforcing Federal safety regulations. State pipeline safety
personnel represent more than 80 percent of the State and
Federal inspection workforce. State inspectors are the first
line of defense at the community level to promote pipeline
safety, underground utility damage prevention and public
awareness regarding gaseous and liquid pipeline systems.
In their role as inspectors, the State pipeline safety
personnel interact with a variety of communities which may be
affected by the pipelines of more than 3,000 operators subject
to the requirements of the public awareness program
regulations.
I have submitted written testimony for the record
describing the role of the States in helping to enhance
pipeline safety and the status of our efforts in the areas of
education and public awareness.
Briefly, States have been engaged in two distinct efforts:
One, education of the public about gas and liquid pipeline
safety and how to prevent excavation damage to these pipelines;
and two, inspection of operators' public awareness programs,
plans and results. We are also continuing to work with PHMSA in
putting together inspection protocols to use in determining the
effectiveness of these programs.
As you know, excavation damage is the number one cause of
pipeline accidents. With the aid of the Federal One Call and
the State Damage Prevention grants, the States have been very
active in helping to educate those who excavate near buried
pipelines and other facilities. These activities include
promoting the 811 nationwide number to be called before any
excavation.
In my own State of Virginia, we routinely sponsor public
service announcements about excavation damage prevention and
offer mandatory education programs as part of the enforcement
of the Virginia damage prevention law. In addition, we annually
distribute hundreds of thousands of educational materials
ranging from coloring books for young Virginians to safe
digging manuals for professional excavators.
With respect to operators' public awareness programs and
results thus far, the States have primarily concentrated on
determining the adequacy of these programs. In order to
evaluate if these programs are effective, States and PHMSA are
putting together inspection forms and associated guidance for
use by our inspectors. In crafting these documents, we are
addressing certain issues to ensure effective evaluation of
these programs.
In short, we believe the requirement for pipeline operators
to have effective public awareness program is good, and it has
already shown some results. With our Federal partner we have
mapped out a plan to begin verification of these plans as early
as this fall. At this point NAPSR believes added legislative
mandates in this area are not warranted and could create
additional obstacles for operators to implement their program.
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and I will be glad to answer
any questions.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Mr. Kipp.
Mr. Kipp. I am pleased to appear before you today to
represent the CGA, a nonprofit organization dedicated to shared
responsibility and damage prevention to underground facilities.
The CGA now counts more than 1,400 individuals, representing 16
stakeholder groups, and nearly 200 member organizations. In
addition, our 60 regional partners total some 2,000 members
covering most States and 6 Canadian provinces.
On May 1st, 2007, 811 came into service across the country.
Much of our public awareness focus has been centered on
educating the public and excavators through the Call 811 Before
You Dig campaign. The CGA relies almost completely on our
network of members to implement the 811 campaign. Following are
eight examples of CGA's major activities in public awareness
and education, the topic on today's agenda. Many other
initiatives are identified in the written submission provided
earlier this week.
In November 2009, the 811 logo and tagline were painted on
the number 29 Shell race car in Homestead for the closing race
of the 2009 NASCAR series. In April of this year, Shell once
again painted the tagline on the race care for the Talladega
race. They were joined by 3M, who included the 811 logo and
tagline on the number 16 car. At no cost to the CGA, these
messages generated more than a half-million dollars' worth of
media coverage for the 811 message.
Beginning 5 a.m. on August 11th, 2009, more than 50
volunteers from Dig Safely New York, National Grid and Con Ed
worked the rope lines of the Today Show and Early Show wearing
811 T-shirts on 8/11 Day. One of the volunteers was
interviewed, generating a message that, according to
advertising equivalency values, would have cost some $50,000.
John Deere has arranged for CGA and the 811 message to ring
the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange on August 20th
of this year.
Atmos Energy has incorporated the 811 logo on all print
correspondence, which equates to millions of pieces of
literature annually.
Chevron funded the production and distribution of a radio
PSA tailored to the 19 coastal parishes in Louisiana, reminding
folks to please call 811 before dredging in the gulf to avoid
further damage and potential injury.
Williams Pipeline provided funding to the CGA to create,
produce and distribute an 8-minute video for educating 8- to
11-year-olds on the dangers of digging and the treasures that
lie below surface of the Earth.
Colonial Pipeline painted a 30-foot-high 811 logo and the
accompanying message on a holding tank along Interstate 85.
Following their lead, Kinder Morgan, Sunoco, PSE&G of New
Jersey, Williams, Shell and others have all painted the 811
logo and message on tanks facing highly traveled highways
throughout the country.
Ten One Call centers have pooled advertising money and
contracted Joey Logano, a NASCAR driver, to record radio and
television PSAs for ad distribution. Logano's photo
highlighting the 811 message has also been incorporated into a
large-scale print campaign.
CGA estimates that stakeholder support of the 811 campaign
provides a value of $10 million annually in advertising
equivalency.
The CGA best practices have become the standard for damage-
prevention practices. A number of States have adopted some or
all of the CGA practices in their laws or rules governing
excavation practices in their States. Per these practices, the
CGA believes that consistent, fair and balanced State
enforcement of One Call laws in States where no enforcement
exists today has the greatest potential for helping reduce
excavation damages.
The CGA also believes the elimination of State exemptions
to One Call laws would also help reduce damages, and together
these two issues, if implemented, will help continue this
yearly trend of reduced excavation damages in this country.
In August, the CGA will publish and distribute its sixth
report on damage data. Following is a brief summary of
highlights that will be found in this report:
2009 marked the fourth consecutive year that more than
100,000 reports were voluntarily input into our system.
It is estimated that total damages to underground
infrastructure have gone from an estimated 450,000 in 2004 to
170,000 in 2009, a decrease in damages of more than 60 percent.
It is estimated that no call made to the One Call centers
were responsible or were a contributing factor in more than
200,000 damages in 2004, while that number was estimated to be
approximately 60,000 last year, in 2009, a decrease of 70
percent.
We believe that the advent of 811 and public awareness
programs of CGA stakeholders have had a major impact on this
aspect of damage prevention. We still have much work to do.
Thank you.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Mr. O'Rourke.
Mr. O'Rourke. Following Bob Kipp is not really fair to me.
CGA is such a great organization.
Chairwoman Brown, Ranking Member Shuster, thank you for
having the National Association of State Fire Marshals testify
before the Subcommittee today.
The National Association of State Fire Marshals represents
the most senior fire officials at the State level. Our
membership is unique, however, in that many State fire marshals
are, in fact, law enforcement personnel, giving our
organization a blended fire and law enforcement perspective.
Most of our State fire marshals, however, began their careers
in the firehouse, working their way up the ranks, eventually
achieving the highest level fire service position of the State.
Among the many duties of the State fire marshal, one of the
most important is incident prevention.
Mr. O'Rourke. As such, incident prevention is a central
focus in all our programs, in particular for pipeline safety.
The National Association of State Fire Marshals has been
actively involved in pipeline education and safety since 2002
when we entered into the Partnership For Excellence in Pipeline
Safety with U.S. DOT. The State Fire Marshals and U.S. DOT's
partnership is focused on many issues, including liquified
national gas safety, pipeline high consequence areas, hazardous
material safety, but the foundation of the partnership is a
training program entitled Pipeline Emergencies. The Pipeline
Emergencies Program offers a comprehensive training curriculum
that covers liquid and gas pipelines, transmission and
distribution line pipelines.
The unambiguous priority of the State Fire Marshals is to
ensure that all fire fighters, in particular volunteer fire
fighters, receive comprehensive fire training and prevention
education. To that end, the Pipeline Emergencies Training
Program, which was developed in 2004, we have shipped 45,000
training packages to both public safety and industry personnel.
U.S. DOT has paid for the cost of shipping that material, and
there is no purchase fee to any public safety organization that
requests a copy.
In addition, we have trained more than 1,000 certified fire
instructors in all 50 states.
The timing of today's hearing is quite opportune. One of
the limitations of our current Pipeline Emergencies Training
Program has been that it has been available only in a hard copy
and it is disseminated through a broad network of emergency
response organizations. While this has helped to ensure that
the public safety community is saturated with the training
program, it has limited our ability to measure the program.
Several months ago, however, State Fire Marshals and U.S. DOT
agreed to update the training curriculum and, most important,
make it available in the electronic format.
We are now currently exploring funding opportunities for a
more comprehensive pipeline safety training portal. We are not
facing electronic or technological difficulties or limitations
with this portal. Well established platforms exist, and the
platforms exist in order to develop these, deliver these
education programs electronically. Some of these platforms
allow for integrated and multi-modal notification capabilities.
And with these capabilities, the State Fire Marshals and the
pipeline industry could engage in measurable communications
with the public safety and other public officials regarding
safety training, pipeline maintenance, high consequence areas
and a myriad of other public awareness priorities.
We currently are reviewing the feasibility of this portal
approach. Sustained funding for a curriculum of this type is
always a concern, as training cannot be switched on and off
depending on the availability of resources. It is imperative to
continue the progress that we have achieved through Pipeline
Emergencies Training Program. In order to adequately maintain
the training necessary for new emergency responders entering
into the industry and to update the training curriculum for new
procedures and hazardous materials, we respectfully request
that your Subcommittee authorize funding for pipeline training
for a multi-year period.
The National Association of State Fire Marshals remains
committed to providing pipeline safety training and awareness
to the Nation's emergency responders. Hearings like this are
essential to sharpening the country's focus on these so
preventible incidents. Public awareness and education, as well
as emergency responder training, are a vital component of a
pipeline safety program. Our association and our membership
stand ready to provide greater assistance to the Subcommittee,
to the executive branch and to our State and local partners. I
thank you on behalf of the National Association of State Fire
Marshals for this opportunity and am happy to answer any
questions.
Ms. Brown of Florida. I think we can get through Mr. Davis
at least.
Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis. Chairman Brown, Ranking Member Shusterand
Members of the Committee, I appreciate this opportunity to
testify before you today.
My name is Sam Davis, and I am the general manager and CEO
of the Lake Apopka Natural Gas District in Winter Garden,
Florida.
The Lake Apopka Natural Gas District currently operates a
municipal natural gas distribution utility with over 600 miles
of pipe infrastructure which serves a 500 square mile area
within Lake and Orange Counties in central Florida. The
district serves approximately 15,000 customers.
I testify today on behalf of the American Public Gas
Association. APGA is the national association for publicly
owned, not-for-profit natural gas retail distribution systems.
There are approximately 1,000 public gas systems in 36 States.
Public gas systems are an important part of their
community. Our members' employees live in their communities
they serve and are accountable to local officials. Public gas
systems are generally regulated by their consumer owners
through locally elected governing boards or appointed
officials.
However, when it comes to pipeline safety all of our
members must comply in the same manner as industrial-owned
utilities with pipeline safety regulations issued by Pipelines
and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, which is PHMSA.
For most of our members these pipeline safety regulations are
enforced by an individual State's pipeline safety agency.
While the manner of safety regulation may be the same, one
major difference between the average industrial-owned utility
and the average public gas system is size and the number of
both customers served and employees. Approximately half of the
1,000 public gas systems have five employees or less. As a
result, regulations and rules have a significantly different
impact upon the small public gas system than they do upon a
larger system serving hundreds of thousands or millions of
customers with several hundreds or even thousands of employees.
In addition, increased costs imposed on these local
governments by additional regulation of their natural gas
utilities can potentially cut into other services provided by
the local government, including fire, police and public safety
programs.
Through a cooperative agreement with PHMSA and APGA
security integrity, they assist small operators to meet their
regulatory requirements, and we thank PHMSA for their support.
Gas utilities are the final step in taking natural gas from
the production field to the homeowner or business. As such, a
public gas systems' commitment to safety is second to none. A
part of safety is education and public awareness.
Even before there were Federal pipeline safety regulations,
public gas systems conducted public awareness programs.
Utilities add odorant to the gas to give it its distinctive
smell so that people can smell a leak. Educating the public so
that the public recognizes a gas odor and to call the utility
if they smell gas is a critical component of each utility
safety program.
Another critical component is educating the public about
the existence of buried gas lines in their community and the
importance of calling the One Call center to have lines marked
before digging. In 2006 APGA developed a multi-public awareness
plan. APGA also conducts public awareness surveys for
participating members. It is called the APGA Gas Overall
Awareness Level, GOAL, program. And it calls a random sample of
customers and noncustomers in the service territory of
participating utilities. We are conducting our fourth year of
surveys, even though the regulations did not require service to
be completed until this year.
As the Committee considers legislation to reauthorize the
Pipeline Safety Act, I want to communicate our public--excuse
me, our support for reasonable regulations to ensure that
individuals who control the Nation's network of distribution
pipelines are provided the training and tools necessary to
safely operate those systems.
Over the past several years the industry had numerous
additional requirements placed on it. For this reason, APGA
strongly supports a clean reauthorization of the act.
Should the Committee consider revisions to the act, there
are a number of issues APGA will ask the Committee to consider.
One of these issues I would like to bring to your attention
relates to an expansion of the excess flow valve requirements
to commercial and industrial businesses and multifamily
residences. A commercial building, unlike a residential unit,
may see changes in gas--may see huge changes in gas demand as
tenants in the space move in and out. As a result, the EFV
application to these units would be impractical.
PHMSA has established a working group of government,
industry, and public experts to study the issues relating to
installing large volumes, EFVs and other single residential
services. We encourage Congress to allow this stakeholder
working group to proceed towards making specific
recommendations on this issue. Public gas systems are proud of
their safety record. Safety has been and will continue to be
our top priority. We look forward to working with the Committee
on reauthorization of the Pipeline Safety Act. Thank you.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Thank you.
What we are going to do is stand in informal recess. We
have three votes, and we will be back as soon as the last vote
is over. Thank you.
[Recess.]
Ms. Brown of Florida. The Committee will officially come
back to order.
Mr. Lidiak, we left off with you. Thank you.
Mr. Lidiak. Good afternoon Chairwoman Brown, Ranking Member
Shuster and Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for inviting
me to testify on pipeline public awareness and education
programs.
I am Peter Lidiak, the pipeline director for the American
Petroleum Institute. My comments today are being presented on
behalf of API and AOPL, the Association of Oil Pipelines.
Together our members operate 85 percent of the liquid pipeline
miles in the United States.
Public awareness programs are tools for pipeline operators
to get information about pipelines into the hands of the
public, excavators, public officials and first responders,
among others. This includes information about activities that
are and are not appropriate around pipelines and what to do in
the event of a pipeline emergency.
Pipeline operators have conducted some type of public
awareness programs for 20 years. Over time, pipeline operators
have developed and shared practices to improve their programs.
In 2003, a consensus standard establishing a common framework
for public awareness programs, API Recommended Practice 1162,
was published. And in May 2005, the Office of Pipeline Safety
incorporated RP 1162 by reference into its regulations, thereby
requiring liquid and natural gas operators to follow these
practices.
When the first edition of RP 1162 was being drafted, the
goal was to craft a public awareness framework and provide
practices that were clear, reasonable and practical, so that
pipeline safety was enhanced. That meant clarifying what public
awareness actually means; determining the techniques and
logistics for achieving it; and then measuring for
effectiveness. And it meant taking on this task for the
hundreds of pipeline operators and many millions of people who
live or work along the hundreds of thousands of miles of
pipelines that run across our Nation.
Many stakeholders were involved in developing RP 1162,
including industry, members of the public, State regulators,
and the Office of Pipeline Safety. We gathered input and
received on drafts and used that feedback.
Communicating safety awareness about anything is hard: Not
using a cell phone while driving; wearing a seat belt; the
dangers of exceeding the speed limit. Each and every day people
are barraged with messages and information. Sometimes people
don't want to take the time to listen or don't have enough
interest, even though we think they should. It is little wonder
that pipeline operators sometimes struggle to communicate about
pipeline safety in our communities.
Much has been done to enhance public awareness since the
first edition of RP 1162 came out, and much has been learned.
We are continually finding new and more effective ways to reach
out to key audiences about pipeline safety. Our pipeline public
awareness programs are more effective when we can engage in
two-way communication with our key audiences.
As part of our efforts we will make RP 1162 better, as we
are now doing with a new edition that we expect to come out
later this year. The proposed revisions for the second edition
of RP 1162 are expected to address some of the challenges that
operators face, increase the effectiveness of operator public
awareness programs, and address a recommendation from the
National Transportation Safety Board to identify 911 emergency
call centers explicitly as part of the target audience for
public awareness programs.
Another key element of our public education programs is
getting excavators to use One Call systems before they dig and
the public to report unauthorized excavation. The industry has
strongly funded and participated in the Common Ground Alliance
since its inception to promote best practices in excavation and
marking around underground facilities. And we supported the
rollout of the national 811 Call Before You Dig campaign.
We also support strong State damage prevention laws that
call for states to eliminate all exemptions from those laws.
This would remove a significant safety gap because excavation
damage is a problem, regardless of who the excavator is. Public
awareness programs need to continually evolve to meet the
challenges of communicating with the public, excavators and
officials. However, our objective should remain the same:
Preventing damage and promoting safety awareness.
Revisions to the statute regarding public awareness
programs are unnecessary. Rather than focusing on factors like
public behavior changes, which are nearly impossible to
quantify, we believe operators need the flexibility to build
and innovatively shape their programs to meet our mutual goal
of promoting safety awareness.
In order to provide maximum protection to the public from
excavation damage, we strongly urge that all exemptions from
State One Call requirements be eliminated. And when the revised
edition of API 1162 is published, we strongly encourage OPS to
adopt it as a needed update to the pipeline public awareness
requirements.
This concludes my prepared remarks, and I would be happy to
answer any questions that Members of the Subcommittee may have.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Thank you. I think I will start with
you Mr. Lidiak.
Following the 2007 pipeline incident in Mississippi, the
NTSB made some safety recommendations to the American Petroleum
Institute to revise API 1162 to identify 911 emergency call
centers as emergency response agencies to be included in
outreach programs under a pipeline operators public education
program. What has API done to address this issue as far as NTSB
recommendations?
Mr. Lidiak. Chairwoman Brown, API has in the draft RP
included 911 call centers, explicitly identified them, and
those will be published in the final version. And we have
informed NTSB of that action, and they have marked the action
as ongoing and acceptable.
Ms. Brown of Florida. The recommendation was made in 2007?
Mr. Lidiak. Yes.
Ms. Brown of Florida. What year is this?
Mr. Lidiak. This is 2010. And this is the time period in
which we would be reviewing the RP, and it has been under
revision for the last 2 years.
Ms. Brown of Florida. So when will it be implemented? It is
being implemented as we speak or you are planning on
implementing it?
Mr. Lidiak. The RP is due to be balloted some time within
the next couple of months.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Would you explain the process to me?
I guess I don't understand.
Mr. Lidiak. When we review a standard, the working group
will look at things that require changes, and they will work on
it over time to make those revisions.
And then, at the end of the process, we will put it out for
comment. We will collect comments, respond to them, and then
ballot the final document. And if it passes the ballot, it goes
into effect. And if it doesn't pass, then we go back and make
further changes and then reballot it.
Ms. Brown of Florida. So you all do not have to implement
these recommendations?
Mr. Lidiak. We are under no legal obligation to because
NTSB is not a regulatory body, but we always take NTSB
recommendations seriously, and we try to address them when we
are making revisions to our standards documents.
Ms. Brown of Florida. OK.
Mr. Shuster.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
The first question, Mr. Kipp, what can Congress do to help
your alliance promote the efforts that you do for the 811
calling?
Mr. Kipp. We receive a cooperative grant of $500,000 per
year. An extension of that would be terrific.
As per the testimony, this year our budget takes that
$500,000 into account as well as $1.2 million from the
industry, and with that $1.7 million, we operate the CGA.
A continuation of that grant would be great. It really
enables us to develop material that the industry can use and at
the same time continue building robustness into our damage
information reporting tool, which is a tool that those 100,000
damages are submitted to, and we publish that report annually.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you.
Also, in regards to the exemption, it is an issue that I
still can't comprehend. I am not a big proponent of the Federal
Government doing sweeping laws that say, you must do this,
because my concern is down the road, as laws tend to evolve or
devolve, whichever the case may be, any time someone sticks a
spade shovel in the ground, they will be required to call.
So can you talk to me, what is your view on the exemptions
in some of the States?
And after that, I want to talk to Mr. Tahamtani and ask
your view on that from your States.
Mr. Kipp. We recently passed the best practice. And I am
sure you are aware of the process. But every one of our best
practices must be agreed to by everybody and everyone in the
CGA, all 16 stakeholder groups. And the practice took 8 years
to get through.
But, basically, we are in favor of mandatory participation
with a very few slight exemptions. An example, if you own the
property, there is no public thoroughfare nearby, you are
digging on your own property, you have your own facility, you
know where it is--an example, a railroad right of way--then
fine, go ahead and dig on your property, you know where it is,
you know there is no danger. And that would be just about the
only exemption that we are in favor of.
Mr. Shuster. OK. Thank you.
Mr. Tahamtani.
Mr. Tahamtani. With regard to exemptions, I think it is
very easy to say that we should have no exemptions.
Virginia law was changed dramatically back in 1995, and we
have a number of exemptions. For example, not all lines can be
located. Even if you call, the utility can't find them because
they were put in years ago; they don't have a tracing wire, for
example. We have an exemption that says if there is a call for
excavation and the utility can't find its own facility, they
should be able to hand dig and find it.
So you have to be very careful not to say no exemption.
In Virginia, every exemption that we have is backed by
data, by experience. I will give you a quick example. Back in
1995, when we tried to remove the Virginia DOT from that
exemption, they appeared before our General Assembly and said,
if you do this, the taxpayers have to bear about $11 million a
year for us to dig in our own right of way, we know what we
have in the right of way; 15 years later I don't have the data
to show that they should not have that exemption. So some
exemptions do make sense; some don't.
Mr. Shuster. And what, if they had to call up, what would
it cost the taxpayers of Virginia, did you say, $11 million or
more than that?
Mr. Tahamtani. Well, when VDOT, in this case, is digging on
their right of way, if they make a call, they have to now mark
all of their facilities, and other utilities have to mark their
facilities, and as a result of all of that, you have got an
expense that keeps on going up.
Now, no one confirmed the $11 million, but we went on
record to say that if damage data proved that our DOT employees
were causing problems, we would be coming back. Again, 15 years
later, they are in the 1 percentile range in terms of damages.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you.
And Mr. Lidiak, if I could, my colleague from New York, on
a couple of occasions, and I think other colleagues of mine
have talked about API's recommended practices, making them free
to everybody. Can you explain to us why they are not free? The
administrator has talked a little bit about it, but if you
could.
Mr. Lidiak. I would be happy to, Mr. Shuster.
API charges for its standards, as do all standards
organizations. These fees cover the costs of publication and
the staffing needed to manage those publications.
API manages 500 standards at the current time, give or
take, and it requires a lot of oversight. And that is how we
recoup the fee. It is part of our business that is a self-
supporting part of our association's work.
Mr. Shuster. And so, if Congress forced you to do them for
free, it would be a taking. There would be a constitutional--a
legal question there.
Mr. Lidiak. I am not a lawyer.
Mr. Shuster. Right. But that would be my guess, it would be
a pretty--you know, taking somebody's proprietary information
that they paid to staff and research it, so, OK. That is what I
thought. And I think that the administrator let us know that at
some point that that seemed to be the case. I appreciate it.
And with that, I yield back.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Thank you.
Mr. Kessler, you stated that the Pipeline Safety Trust
believes that communities should feel safe and when pipelines
run through them, the trust of the government, everything
should be proactive, and I agree to all of this. What is
missing? What else do you think we need to be doing?
Mr. Kessler. Well, Madam Chairman, I think generally there
is very--it is very difficult for citizens to get access to a
lot of this information, as my testimony said. And to
participate, particularly in the industry standard development,
it's not something that most citizens, it is not like a
government rulemaking where there is a Federal Register notice,
that there are potentially meetings around the country: it's
notices to members of that organization. I am sure they would
welcome if we asked to participate, but I don't know that
invitations get sent out to groups like ours or other groups
around the country or even local governments to participate all
occasions.
So it is a very different process than the Federal
Government would undergo. So I think that is one particular
area. I think access to more data about individual pipelines
being available so people can know what is actually, that these
inspections have been performed, what has been found, what has
been remedied; I think that makes people feel safer when they
can actually see this, rather than having to rely on an
interested party with a for-profit motive telling them, don't
worry about it, everything is safe or a regulator, who, while
getting better, doesn't have the greatest history with the
public or with this Congress in terms of its credibility on
these matters. So, generally more information is better.
Ms. Brown of Florida. I agree.
And there is a system that one of the things that I know
that we will be addressing, because even when the government
wants certain information, they have to pay for it or if
someone--I mean, that is the craziest thing I ever heard. That
will be one of the things that is going to be addressed.
Mr. Kessler. One thing I would suggest, that as a condition
of including these industry standards in a rulemaking array,
then they are required to turn it over for free; otherwise the
government will have to develop its own standards and will have
to find a way of raising the money.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Well, you know Ronald Reagan said
trust but verify.
Mr. Kessler. Right.
Ms. Brown of Florida. So it should be an independent, or
the government at least publishing the standards and verifying
that they are accurate, I will tell you anything.
Mr. Kessler. I think that is right. I feel like, when we
put things into the record of this Committee or of the House
and the Senate, we introduce all sorts of public information or
privately produced information into the record to make it
publicly available.
I really think it would be--and I am not averse to
compensating the industry either, reasonably, but I think there
really needs to be a condition that if we are going to use
these standards, then the condition on the industry is--and I
am not advocating using these standards, but if we are going to
do it, then the industry has to make it available, basically
turn it over to the government for publication at whatever,
whether it is free or some level of compensation.
Ms. Brown of Florida. I just really believe there should be
some independent verification.
Mr. Kessler. Yeah.
And the API public awareness document can't be, even as
early as, you know, as recently as today, you can't get that
off the Web site. Well, it was available, and it was available
in a way that you can't print it. So it makes it very hard to
go through such a big document when you can't print it out. I
know I do a lot of my research still on paper.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Well, I mean, I understand, when we
want it, we have to pay for it, so there is a major problem
there that will be addressed.
But I can't say I was around in 2002 and you were around in
2002 when they came up with some recommendations prohibiting
the user fees to fund the programs. Do you know why?
Mr. Kessler. Sure. The program was developed primarily Mr.
Boucher from Virginia----
Ms. Brown of Florida. I didn't hear you.
Mr. Kessler. Mr. Boucher from Virginia was the primary, and
Mr. Dingell. And what it was, the program was developed as a
compromise on public information right to know between
Republicans and Democrats. And it was a good compromise. It
allowed citizens a way to get more information.
But it was designed, based upon the EPA Technical
Assistance Grants under Superfund, which this Committee is
familiar with, and really is designed to go to community groups
and even local governments. And the reason the word for-profit,
excluding for-profit entities, that was, in drafting it, the
specific meaning of for-profit was pipelines. It was, you know,
leg counsel, and we never thought that we needed to
specifically say the word pipeline operators or companies. For-
profit seemed to cover it.
But it clearly was meant for these local governments and
citizen groups. And then, furthermore, the restrictions, not
all of which I would love to see continued, but they are there
in law and passed overwhelmingly by this Committee and the
House and the Senate, and they state that the money is to be
used for scientific analysis, data gathering. And this is
something I think the industry was very interested in. It is
really to be for hiring technical experts, engineers, for
assessing data, but also for some public participation where
the public, helping fund the public go to these things, like
the API processes or government processes. They are not
supposed to be used for lobbying, and they are not supposed to
be used for acquiring physical equipment. It is a small amount
of money. That is a lot of reason to----
Ms. Brown of Florida. The grant caps $50,000. Do you want
to speak to that? And really, the amount of the total program,
probably, she said $1 million?
Mr. Kessler. It is $1 million per year, I believe. The
$50,000 number the members drew from the existing Superfund
program, which is structured so that a $50,000 grant is
awarded, but you can continue to award, build upon that award
over time. The problem is that you can't find an engineer
anymore and hire a firm for $50,000, and so it becomes not as
useful, the amount, as I think members thought it was back
then. So it would be useful to raise that cap.
Ms. Brown of Florida. And I think, you know, also, not just
the cap, but the amount of communities that can participate. I
mean, critical areas, I mean, should be addressed.
Mr. Kessler. Right. The communities, this hasn't been well
publicized. And as you know, and I referenced in my testimony,
it took many years. It took in fact a second reauthorization,
the 2006 Pipes Act, to really get PHMSA to act on moving this.
I know there are a number of members who personally were very
upset and expressed it to previous administrators over the
duration of how long it took to roll out the program.
And now that it is rolled out, I think there is a real
issue with how well it is being publicized, which I think PHMSA
agrees with, and that we need to really make an effort to let
communities know that they are able to avail themselves of
these funds. And I think it will result in a more informed
public. I think it is kind of the Alfred Hitchcock thing; you
fear the things you don't see or you don't know more than when
you have the information and you know what you are dealing
with. And I think many things that communities fear, once they
have an independent verification of maybe what the pipeline
company or PHMSA is saying, will feel much more comfortable,
and it will make life easier for pipelines, too.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Thank you.
Mr. Kipp, in your written testimony, you stated that the
Common Ground Alliance believes that consistent fair and
balanced State enforcement of One Call laws in States where no
enforcement exists today have the greatest potential for
helping reduce dangers. What States that enforces these laws
without impacting their already tight budget, expense budget,
can you please elaborate on this? Specifically, what areas
where no enforcement exists?
Mr. Kipp. Well, one of the States--there are a number of
States who do enforce it, but a good model is the one right
next to me. Massoud Tahamtani in Virginia, they have a model
that has been in existence since 1996. And they reduced their
damages, if I recall the number, Massoud, from 4.59 damages per
thousand tickets in 1996 to somewhere under 2 right now, if I
am not mistaken--1.5.
There are a number of States that have either no
enforcement whatsoever or enforcement that has been assigned
to, for instance, the State police. In one of the states I know
of, they don't have time to enforce; they won't do it. And
such, there is really no great improvement as a result of their
laws.
You really see a difference in States like Georgia,
Virginia, Maine and other States where they have a variety of
types of enforcement, fair and balanced enforcement. And that
is critical.
A lot of States are looking right now at enforcing the laws
only when a contractor doesn't do what he should do. Massoud
will tell you that, in Virginia, they have a system where
everyone has steps, everyone follows those steps, and whether
it is the contractor who doesn't call or the locator that
doesn't mark or mismarks, they are looked at and fined
appropriately or accordingly or educated if need be to ensure
that there is no recurrence of this. And that is how he has
been able to get his damages down to some pretty outstanding
levels. Some of the other States I am familiar with have
numbers in the 4 or 5 or 6 damages per thousand tickets, 3 and
4 times what Massoud has.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Can you give us a--do we have a
comprehensive report on each of the States and the status?
Mr. Kipp. There is no report by State as such. The numbers
I am giving you--I know Massoud has his by State. Some other
States will have some numbers. Like Colorado, they have
mandatory publication of all damages, not only for gas and
petroleum but for all infrastructure. And they have a good
report, and that could be provided. The numbers I am giving you
are mostly generated from discussions that I have with,
confidential discussions, frankly, that I have with gas
operators and petroleum operators who will tell me what they
are running and are looking to improve but are not looking to
necessarily have a burden of fines on their system.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Maybe that is one of the things that
we need to look into in a comprehensive study of each State and
where we stand.
Mr. Kipp. Yes. Texas has another system that they just
rolled out I believe 2years ago, the Railroad Commission. And
it is very different than what they have in Virginia, but it
seems to be working. We will see.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Mr. Tahamtani, can you just give us
some of what you all have done to bring down your incidence and
what recommendations that you would add?
Mr. Tahamtani. Sure. Just a brief history. It was back in
1993 where a pipeline ruptured not far from here in Reston,
Virginia, and dumped about 400,000 gallons of oil in the
Potomac River. As a result of that, we got letters and calls
from some Members of Congress here and from the Secretary of
Transportation. So we brought a bunch of people together;
excavators, locators, utilities, everybody who had something to
do with this process, and we wrote our law.
And a couple of things that we did was--one was
enforcement. Because obviously, even the best laws won't
probably work by themselves. And in that, we felt that instead
of the government enforcing it, we needed an expert body of
people, contractors, utilities, locators, Miss Utility, all
those entities that have a hand in the process, to look at
every single damage.
In Virginia, every single pipeline damage must be reported
to us and must be investigated. And so that enforcement plus
investigation of every single report has really been one
element that has made the program work.
The other piece is that, in Virginia at least, all the
fines go to public education. So that has been about $1 million
just going back to the public on public education. And if you
add all the money that the Virginia operators, pipeline
operators, and others spend, we have got about a $7 million
public education program in the State.
We also made a number of changes in our law that have made
it easier for the contractors and the utilities to talk to each
other. And I mean, when they put a mark down they, designate
whose mark it is. We have also said that if you get out there
to dig and that mark doesn't make any sense to you, you cannot
dig, you have to call back and wait 3 hours. So there are a
number of these things that have made us, made our program work
to the point that, Bob mentioned, about 65 percent decrease in
pipeline damages since 1996.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Does the State of Virginia exempt
itself from the 811 requirements, does it ever?
Mr. Tahamtani. We have a number of exemptions. I mentioned
earlier that all of these are based on data, and the data still
supports those exemptions.
However, there are some exemptions that we had back in 1996
that we removed them with some fight, and they have worked to,
again, support the program pretty well.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Thank you.
Mr. Davis, I understand that Lake Apopka received a $50,000
grant from DOT under the Community Technical Assistance Grant
Program. What are you all doing with the grant, and what is
your experience with PHMSA on the grant process?
Mr. Davis. Madam Chair, yes, Lake Apopka was a recipient of
one of the $50,000 grants. Lake Apopka applied for this grant
based on criteria released in the Federal Register, Volume
73216, dated November 6, 2008. There were criteria in that
release that we were in compliance with. There was also a press
release issued by DOT on September 17, 2009, announcing the
grant awards and stating examples of acceptable projects for
that grant. As such, Lake Apopka Natural Gas is currently using
the grant toward the initial development of a GIS information
system. That system, when complete, will help in enhancing our
pipeline monitoring capabilities and public awareness campaigns
to promote the sharing of information between our pipelines and
other natural gas pipelines in the areas and land owners as
well.
So the grant has been very, very useful. Our experience
with PHMSA has been very good, and to my knowledge, we haven't
had any issues come to my attention because of that.
Ms. Brown of Florida. How are you all using the grant?
Mr. Davis. We are implementing, currently implementing the
formation of a GIS system, Geographical Information System, for
monitoring purposes. We are just implementing it. We had none.
The district needed one. We didn't have too many funds for
that, so we applied for the grant to get some assistance in
that.
Ms. Brown of Florida. So are you working with the city
council or county?
Mr. Davis. No. Actually, we have a consultant that we are
working were with in helping us begin that. We are a district
so, we don't belong to any particular city council. I do
provide services to nine municipal systems in my district, but
I report to a five member board that these board members are
made up of council folks within the districts and the cities
that I serve.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Isn't Apopka part of Orange County?
Mr. Davis. Yes, we are. We serve all of Lake and Orange
County.
Ms. Brown of Florida. So have you all talked with the
council, the county commissioners?
Mr. Davis. No, we haven't. Actually, I hadn't had any
discussion with any county commissioners. Mostly our system is
located in West Orange County, but I do have conversations and
contact with the various mayors of each of the cities that we
serve.
Ms. Brown of Florida. OK.
Last question, Mr. Lidiak, is there anything that prevents
PHMSA from just issuing its own standards and not simply
adopting the API standards?
Mr. Lidiak. Could you repeat the question? I don't think I
understand.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Back to Mr. Shuster's question on
standards. PHMSA adopts your all standards, and the question is
whether or not they could issue their own standards? Is there
anything that will stop them from issuing their own standards?
Mr. Lidiak. There is nothing that would stop them from
issuing their own standards.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Well, I understand we don't want to
duplicate services, but do you think there is a need to be
independent?
Mr. Lidiak. I believe that PHMSA is independent. I believe
that they evaluate whether they are going to use the standards
that are required under the National Technology Transfer
Advancement Act, and they make appropriate use of standards
when they see that they fit their need.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Well, I guess my question that I
asked earlier, and this is the second or third time it has come
up during the hearing, is that everything is not made available
to the public. For example, if I wanted some information, I
would have to pay for it. And that I have a problem with.
Mr. Lidiak. As was the case with 1162, we made a decision
with that standard to make it available on our Web site in a
nonprintable form, as Mr. Kessler indicated. We thought that
protected our copyright worldwide and still gave the public
access to the document.
And certainly, with this document, we would consider doing
that in the future as we work with PHMSA.
Because of the model that we use and other standards
organizations use, it would be difficult to do that for all of
our standards.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Well, that is an issue that we are
going to continue to work through and see if we can come up
with some answer that will better satisfy me anyway.
Yes, sir, Mr. Kessler.
Mr. Kessler. Madam Chair, I just want to comment real
quickly, following up on your question. PHMSA, there is nothing
that stops PHMSA from doing just what you said, aside from lack
of budget, which I think is important, that they have their
budget. And as I said in my testimony, it also points to a lack
of expertise that I think should be of concern to the members,
that the regulator doesn't have the expertise to regulate its
community. So I just want to say that maybe there needs to be
some thought about how this regulator performs its duties and
whether it has the abilities and the resources it needs to do
that.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Absolutely. That is what I am
thinking about as we move forward; how we can better work
together to make sure that we are doing what we need to do as a
Member of Congress to protect the public?
Mr. Kessler. And we certainly appreciate that, Madam
Chairman, the work that you are doing, Chairman Oberstar, Mr.
Shuster and others.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Are there any closing comments that
any of the panelists would like to make?
I have a couple of additional questions that we will submit
to you in writing. And with that, I want to thank the witnesses
for their testimony and the Members for their questions.
Again, the Members of this Subcommittee may have additional
questions for the witnesses, and we will ask you to respond to
them in writing. I have some already.
The hearing record will be held open for 14 days for
Members wishing to make additional statements or any further
questions.
Unless there is further business, the Subcommittee is
adjourned. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 5:02 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
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