Pipeline Safety, Regulatory Certainty, and Job Creation Act of 2011

Floor Speech

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Mr. LARSEN of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise today in support of H.R. 2845, the Pipeline Safety, Regulatory Certainty, and Job Creation Act of 2011.

Pipelines have a critical place in our Nation's infrastructure. The national pipeline network of over 2.5 million miles efficiently delivers gasoline, natural gas, oil, and other essential energy products across the country each day. Pipelines play a vital role in our daily lives. Cooking and cleaning, the daily commute, air travel, and the heating of homes and businesses are all made possible by the readily available fuels delivered through pipelines daily. However, because of the volatile nature of the products they deliver, incidents involving gas and hazardous liquid pipeline can and have had serious consequences.

On June 10, 1999, a pipeline explosion caused the release of about 237,000 gallons of gasoline into a creek that flowed through Whatcom Falls Park in Bellingham, Washington, in my district. The gasoline ignited and tragically took the lives of two 10-year-old boys and an 18-year-old young man. Eight additional inhalation injuries occurred in a single-family residence, and the city of Bellingham's water treatment plant was severely damaged. The wildlife in Whatcom Creek was completely destroyed.

This tragedy inspired the 2002 Pipeline Safety Improvement Act. This act increased fines for negligent pipeline operators, improved pipeline testing timelines, provided protection for whistleblowers, and allowed for the State oversight of pipeline safety. In 2006, Congress reauthorized the 2002 law by passing the Pipeline Inspection, Protection, Enforcement, and Safety Act. These acts of Congress have made pipeline safety laws stronger, the construction of new pipelines better, and our existing infrastructure safer. While significant progress has been made in improving the safety of our Nation's pipelines, we must remain vigilant.

In July 2010, a 30-inch pipeline owned by Enbridge Energy Partners ruptured and released 819,000 gallons of oil into the Talmadge Creek, located near Marshall, Michigan. The oil flowed into the Kalamazoo River, a tributary to Lake Michigan. Heavy rains caused the river to overtop existing dams and carried oil 30 miles downstream on the Kalamazoo River toward a Superfund site. Almost a year and a half later, Enbridge is still cleaning up this spill along the riverbanks.

Just a few months after the Enbridge spill, in September 2010, an intrastate natural gas transmission pipeline owned by Pacific Gas and Electric Company ruptured in a residential area in San Bruno, California. The released natural gas ignited, resulting in a fire that destroyed 38 homes and damaged 70 others. As well, tragically, eight people were killed, many were injured, and many more were evacuated.

The legislation that we are considering today addresses many concerns that were raised as a result of these and other incidents. For example, following the incident in Bellingham, Washington, National Transportation Safety Board investigators found, among other things, that Olympic Pipeline had no remote-operated shutoff valves on the line, which could have helped prevent the release of hundreds of thousands of gallons of gasoline. Following the Bellingham incident, the Department of Transportation ordered the pipeline company to install an automatic shutoff valve just downstream of the rupture location so that the volume of product released would be limited in the event of a future pipeline rupture in that area.

H.R. 2845 addresses the issue of shutoff valves. It requires all gas and liquid pipeline operators to install automatic, remote-controlled shutoff valves on new and replaced pipelines.

The bill also doubles civil penalties for pipeline safety violations from
$100,000 to $200,000 per violation and from $1 million to $2 million for maximum penalties.
It requires the Secretary of the Department of Transportation to evaluate and then issue regulations to expand integrity management beyond high-consequence areas, to establish performance standards for leak detection systems and require hazardous liquid pipeline operators to install leak protection systems that meet such performance standards.

It requires pipeline operators, in response to San Bruno, to report to DOT anytime their facilities exceed maximum allowable operating pressure and to conduct tests to confirm the material strength of previously untested gas transmission pipelines in high-consequence areas. And finally, it increases the level of pipeline safety inspectors at DOT by 10 and increases the amount of technical assistance grants that are awarded to local communities from $1 million to $1.5 million annually.

H.R. 2845 is a step in the right direction when it comes to pipeline safety. This bill is supported by industry, and it is supported by pipeline safety and community groups like the Pipeline Safety Trust.

I want to thank the chairman and all the committee members for working on this legislation. I want to thank Carl Weimer, who is the executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust in Bellingham, which formed after the 1999 pipeline explosion, as well for his continued commitment to these issues.

I strongly urge Members to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. LARSEN of Washington. Mr. Speaker, in closing, just let me say a few words.

First off, I want to be sure I thank Ms. Brown of Florida, the ranking member of the subcommittee, as well as Mr. Rahall, the ranking member of the full Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, as well as my colleagues on the majority side of the aisle on the committee, and, of course, on the Energy and Commerce Committee for the work that we all did to make this bill happen.

This is the third version of the pipeline safety bill that I personally have worked on going back to 2001. Each time Congress has reauthorized the pipeline safety bill, we have done so by learning lessons from the previous 4 years, incorporating those lessons into the legislation and taking forward steps to make the use of pipelines and the transportation of liquid fuel and gas safer.

The third thing I just want to point out is that each year--2002, 2006 and 2011--each year of the passage of the pipeline safety bill, the bills have been bipartisan and garnered much support both in the House and in the Senate. We are likely to see that in the House, and I certainly urge the Senate to take this bill up this week and pass it with bipartisan support, as well.

Finally, let me just say to this body that I would urge this body to support this bill and to pass H.R. 2845. I want to thank Mr. Shuster for his cooperation in this effort as well.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

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