[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 368]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                       SAFE PIPELINES ACT OF 2000

  (Mr. INSLEE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, on June 10th, last summer, a gasoline 
pipeline in Bellingham, Washington, ruptured, spilled hundreds of 
thousands of gallons of gasoline and ignited, and a huge fireball took 
the lives of two young boys and one young man. We now have huge holes 
in our safety system of pipelines in this country, and we need to act 
to plug those holes.
  Accordingly, yesterday the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Metcalf), 
the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Smith), the gentlewoman from 
Washington (Ms. Dunn), and myself introduced the Safe Pipelines Act of 
2000. This act will include a couple of common sense measures. It is 
common sense to require periodic regular inspection of these lines, it 
is common sense to require reporting of spills, and it is common sense 
to allow States to move forward to have more rigorous safety standards 
in our neighborhoods.
  I would urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this bill. It is 
only asking these companies to act as a good neighbor when these 
pipelines run next to our back doors, to make sure they are safe. Let 
us require them to be good neighbors and pass this bill.

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