[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 78 (Tuesday, May 17, 2016)]
[House]
[Page H2435]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         PORTER RANCH GAS LEAK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Sherman) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to report to this Congress on the 
Porter Ranch gas leak, the largest methane leak in the history of our 
country.
  It began last October 23, and it lasted for, roughly, 5 months. The 
amount of natural gas that escaped is measured in billions of cubic 
feet. Some 8,000 families were evacuated for months. Our family, 
because we live just about as close as anyone to the leaking well, 
chose not to evacuate but, rather, to rely on filtration systems and 
the fact that we spend much of our time in Washington.
  So how should Congress respond?
  We must say never again--not again in Porter Ranch, not again 
anywhere in this country--but it could happen again because this 
natural gas storage facility was the fifth largest in the country. That 
means there are four other areas that could have an even larger natural 
gas leak. There are no Federal regulations for the safe storage of 
natural gas, and State regulations are so minimal that they are 
incredibly minimal even in famously green California.
  Currently, PHMSA, an agency of the Department of Transportation, 
acknowledges that it has the authority to write Federal regulations. 
They have decided to do so, and my hope is that they will have them 
this fall. This arises, in large part, because I had a chance to 
discuss this with the President of the United States back in January in 
front of about 80 or 100 of our colleagues, and he made a commitment 
that his administration would work to make sure this never happens 
again. Not only is PHMSA working on the regulations, but the OMB has 
assured me that they will act promptly on approving those regulations 
once they are finalized.
  We in Congress are working on legislation that is designed to prod 
PHMSA into acting quickly, but it is important that we not pass 
legislation that actually narrows the existing statutory power or gives 
sentences in statutory provisions that could be used by the oil and gas 
industry to invalidate tough regulations.
  That is why it is critical, for example, that any statute we pass, as 
the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's product provides, 
states explicitly that we are not preempting higher, tougher State 
regulations and that the action taken in Congress will not make people 
less safe than their States would have them be.
  Two issues confront SoCalGas, which is the utility that is 
responsible for this leak.
  The first is that they are going to try to get consumers to pay for 
the cost of their negligence, using the phrase that they should pass 
through to consumers the ``reasonable cost'' of dealing with this 
disaster; so the consumers around Los Angeles should pay for the cost 
of providing relocation assistance to 8,000 families, many of whom have 
been out of their homes for 5 months and longer; the ``reasonable 
costs'' of plugging the leak should be passed through to consumers. The 
reasonable costs of repairing unreasonable negligence is never an 
ordinary and necessary expense to be passed through to consumers.
  This leak resulted from SoCalGas' negligence. There was a subsurface 
safety valve on the well in question that was installed in the 1950s, 
that was removed by SoCalGas in the 1970s, and was never replaced. This 
well they used to inject and remove natural gas, not through the piping 
that was intended or the tubing that was intended for that purpose, but 
through the casing that was never intended for that purpose; and the 
pressure, which is the amount of gas crammed into the field, seems to 
be inconsistent with the age of the wells--some going back 60-years 
plus--that were being used to inject and withdraw the natural gas. The 
costs of this event must not be passed through to the consumers of Los 
Angeles.
  Second, realizing they may have to bear the costs themselves, 
SoCalGas has decided to shortchange the residents who have evacuated. 
They have decided they don't want to pay for the required cleaning 
protocol that is necessary to make homes safe. That is in their release 
of just a couple of days ago. That is outrageous. The cleaning is 
necessary to make the homes safe. LA County Public Health says so, and 
SoCalGas should pay that cost, too.

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