[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 25 (Wednesday, March 8, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1268-S1269]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            PIPELINE SAFETY

  Mr. GORTON. I am here to address the issue of pipeline safety, an 
issue that people in most communities, cities, and towns do not concern 
themselves with unless, regretfully, a tragedy occurs, such as the one 
that took place in Bellingham, WA, last June.
  The devastating liquid pipeline explosion that rocked the city of 
Bellingham and took the lives of three young boys rightfully served as 
a wakeup call and focused our attention on the need for pipeline safety 
reform. While pipelines continue to be the safest means of transporting 
liquid fuels and gas, and though accidents may be infrequent on the 
more than 2 million miles of mostly invisible pipelines in the United 
States, Bellingham has shown us that pipelines do pose potential 
dangers that we ignore at our peril.
  In testifying on the Bellingham incident before a House committee 
last fall, I commented that while Congress had an obligation 
substantively to revise the Pipeline Safety Act in response to the 
clarion call for Bellingham, proposals for specific changes to the law 
seemed premature at that time. State and local officials in Washington 
State, as well as citizens groups, environmentalists, and various 
Federal oversight bodies, were just beginning to examine the accident 
and its causes.
  The Commerce Committee, of which I am a member, has primary 
jurisdiction over this bill in the Senate, and last year I implored the 
chairman, Senator McCain, and other committee members to make the 
reauthorization a top priority. Last week, at my request, the Commerce 
Committee scheduled the first Senate hearing on the topic of pipelines.
  The field hearing to address the Bellingham incident and the State's 
response to it will be held in Bellingham, WA, next Monday, March 13.
  I encourage my colleagues from the Senate Commerce Committee to come 
to Bellingham next Monday to hear firsthand testimony from the families 
of the victims and from local officials whose lives have been 
transformed by this tragedy. Theirs is a story which compels us to 
action. The families and the community will never forget what happened 
last June 10, nor should we in Congress. It is our duty to take the 
lessons learned in Bellingham and adopt tougher safety measures that 
will allow us to prevent future tragedies.
  This hearing will, I hope, serve as guide as we debate the 
reauthorization of the Pipeline Safety Act. And while a number of the 
studies and operational reviews commissioned after the accident are 
still incomplete, including those of the National Transportation Safety 
Board, on the cause of the accident in Bellingham and the report of the 
General Accounting Office as to the performance of the Office of 
Pipeline Safety, other reviews are complete.
  Primary among these is the report of the Fuel Accident Prevention and 
Response Team, a task force convened by Governor Gary Locke and charged 
with reviewing Federal, State and local laws and practices affecting 
pipeline accident prevention and response. A significant contributor to 
this report was Mayor Mark Asmundson of Bellingham, whose efforts to 
learn from, educate others about, and rationally apply the lessons of 
that tragedy have been commendable.
  The Fuel Accident Team recommended changes in law and practice at the 
Federal, State, and local levels. It revealed that there is a lot that 
can be done by State and local officials that is not being done, 
particularly in the area of emergency preparedness, public education, 
and adoption of appropriate set-back requirements to keep development 
away from lines. The Fuel Accident Team also found, however, that at 
least with respect to interstate pipelines, State and local officials 
are limited by Federal law from regulating many of the safety aspects 
of these lines, and that only the Federal Government can adopt or 
enforce requirements for inspection, emergency flow restriction 
devices, operator training, leak detection, corrosion prevention, 
maximum pressure, and other safety measures relevant to the safe 
construction, maintenance, and operation of pipelines.
  While there may be good arguments that pipelines should be managed 
systemically and why inconsistent State standards could erode rather 
than promote safety, these arguments are fatally undermined by the 
absence of meaningful Federal standards. To tell State and local 
governments, as the Pipeline Safety Act effectively does, that they 
cannot require internal inspections of pipelines passing through their 
communities, under their schools and homes and senior centers, when a 
Federal requirement for internal inspections is years overdue, strikes 
me as the worst kind of Federal conceit.

  Amending the Pipeline Safety Act to relax Federal preemption and 
allow States to exceed minimum Federal safety standards was the first 
recommendation of Washington's Fuel Accident Team. Despite this 
recommendation, I understand that the administration's proposal for the 
reauthorization of the Pipeline Safety Act will move in exactly the 
opposite direction, that is, it will propose to eliminate even the 
vague authority under which the Office of Pipeline Safety has appointed 
four States as its agents for purposes of inspecting interstate liquid 
pipelines.
  The purported reason for further disempowering States is, I 
understand, OPS's perception that a system of inconsistent standards is 
unsafe, OPS's perception that a system of inconsistent standards is 
unsafe, and that States already have their hands full with regulating 
intrastate pipelines, which are far more extensive than interstate 
lines. But what if the States disagree with this attitude, which, in 
the absence of meaningful Federal standards is tantamount to saying 
that ``no standards are better than anything States can come up with''?
  Yes, the interstate nature of some pipelines gives the Federal 
Government the option of regulating them and preempting States from 
doing so. If the Federal Government is not going to do its job, 
however, why should we prevent States from assuming responsibility for 
something as important as pipeline safety?
  To its credit, in response to the Bellingham incident the Office of 
Pipeline Safety has proposed to complete a rulemaking on ``pipeline 
integrity'' by the end of this year. This rulemaking, years overdue, is 
not only supposed to address requirements for internal inspection and 
the use of emergency flow restriction devices in highly populated and 
environmentally sensitive areas, but to adopt a systemic approach to 
pipeline safety that focuses not just on specific tests but on making 
sure that pipeline operators are accurately assessing risks, collecting 
and properly analyzing relevant data, and exercising sound judgment. 
Following the June 10 accident last year, the city of Bellingham 
conditioned the resumption of operations of a portion of the pipeline 
on the Olympic Pipe Line Company's adherence to certain process 
management standards borrowed from OSHA regulations applicable to oil 
refineries. This emphasis on a process management approach is, I 
believe, sound and should, I believe, be incorporated into any new 
Federal safety standards.
  Once meaningful Federal standards for pipelines are in place, debate 
about

[[Page S1269]]

whether or not safety is advanced by allowing States to adopt and 
enforce stricter, but inconsistent standards, can begin. Even then, 
however, and certainly until then, I support the proposals in the 
legislation cosponsored in the House and Senate by all of the 
Washington delegation members to prescribe procedures for States to 
assume greater authority in the regulation of pipeline safety. Both 
H.R. 3558 and S. 2004 would permit States to apply for more regulatory 
authority from the Department of Transportation, which is charged with 
reviewing the proposals to ensure that states have the necessary 
resources and that the Balkanization of pipeline regulation will not 
degrade safety.
  I look forward to working with my colleagues from Washington to 
ensure that the following principles, many of which are reflected in 
the current S. 2004, are contained in the reauthorization of the 
Pipeline Safety Act.
  First, I support efforts to allow States greater authority to adopt 
and enforce safety standards for interstate pipelines, particularly is 
light of the absence of meaningful Federal standards. This increase in 
authority should be accompanied by an increase in grants to States to 
carry out pipeline safety activities.

  Second, I agree with Senator Murray that we need to improve the 
collection and dissemination of information about pipelines to the 
public and to local and State officials responsible for preventing and 
responding to pipeline accidents. We also need to ensure that operators 
are collecting information necessary accurately to assess risks and to 
respond. The public should be informed about where pipelines are 
located, what condition they are in, when they fail--we need to lower 
the threshold for reporting failures--and why they fail. We should 
ensure that relevant information is gathered and made available over 
widely accessible means like the Internet.
  Third, in addition to providing an explicit mechanism for States to 
seek additional regulatory authority over interstate pipelines, Federal 
legislation should adopt some mechanism for ensuring that meaningful 
standards for pipeline testing, monitoring, and operation are adopted 
at the national level. Congress has directed the DOT to do some of this 
in the past. But as the Inspector General noted, some of the 
rulemakings are years overdue. To the extent that lack of funding can 
account for some of the delay we should ensure sufficient 
appropriations to allow OPS to complete the necessary rulemakings and 
develop the technology needed to conduct reliable tests of pipelines.
  While I am reluctant to have Congress, rather than experts, prescribe 
specific testing and monitoring requirements, and while I fully 
appreciate the need for flexible testing regimes that recognize the 
differences among pipelines facing variable risks as well as the need 
for dynamic standards that advance with knowledge and technology, I am 
sympathetic to the position that specific mandates may be necessary in 
the face of inaction on the part of OPS. Congress has repeatedly asked 
OPS to conduct rulemakings and been ignored. As a consequence I can 
understand those who have lost patience and are prepared to put 
specific testing and operational prescriptions into Federal statute.
  In addition to ensuring that OPS complies with years-old statutory 
mandates, I support the Inspector General's recommendation that OPS act 
upon, either to reject or accept, the recommendations of the National 
Transportation Safety Board. I don't pretend to know whether NTSB's 
recommendations, that have been accumulating for years, will advance 
safety. It is unacceptable, however, that OPS should simply ignore 
them.
  Fourth, I have heard from citizens' groups who support the creation 
of a model oversight oil spill advisory panel in Washington State. I 
see a real value in creating such a body, and empowering it with 
meaningful authority to comment on and influence State and Federal 
action or inaction. Such an advisory panel can continue to focus needed 
attention on the issue of pipeline safety when the painful memory of 
June 10 begins, for many, at the same time mercifully and regretfully, 
to fade.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired. The Senator 
from Nevada.

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