While U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe and others on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee pressure the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to finish proposing safety rules required under a 5-year old law, the senate’s given unanimous approval to a bipartisan pipeline safety bill to reauthorize the Department of Transportation’s PHMSA.
The reauthorization is though 2019 under the bill sponsored by Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.). Its official title was “Securing America’s Future Energy: Protecting Our Infrastructure of Pipelines and Enhancing Safety Act” or for short, the Safe Pipes Act.
The Pipeline Safety Administration was charged with creating and enforcing 42 new rules under a 2011 law but never finished completion by the time the law expired in the fall of last year. The new bill requires PHMSA to finish the rules before starting work on other regulations. It also ordered the administration to create a pipeline information sharing system and an inspection database.
The House has yet to handle a pipeline safety bill. Hearings on similar draft legislation have been held by a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee and a House Transportation subcommittee but no bill has been introduced.
The House Energy and Power Subcommittee, whose members include Oklahoma congressman Markwayne Mullin held a pipeline safety hearing March 1, urging federal officials to speed up their work on creation of the safety rules.
“We cannot achieve the intended objectives of the Pipeline Safety Act until it has been fully implemented,” said full Committee chairman Fred Upton (R-MI).
“The discussion draft considered is a starting point in reauthorizing the 2011 law,” said subcommittee chairman Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY). “I believe the provisions included within the draft will go a long way toward improving pipeline safety and increasing public confidence in our nation’s energy infrastructure.”
