Regulators were told in 1992 to beef up pipeline scrutiny

Anchorage Daily News ^ | August 13, 2006 | JOSEF HEBERT

[thackney]

Fourteen years ago Congress urged the Transportation Department to start regulating low-pressure pipelines such as those blamed for shutting down Alaska's North Slope oil production.

But it didn't happen. And only now, after questions about pipe maintenance and two damaging oil spills in Alaska, are officials pushing hard to establish federal rules and standards for such lines.

Congress, as part of a pipeline safety law passed in 1992, included among a number of directives that the Transportation Department pay closer attention to low-stress oil and other hazardous liquid pipelines, which still today are exempt from federal regulations.

Over the years, the department's Office of Pipeline Safety had other priorities, including a growing concern about natural gas pipeline accidents where leaks had caused several high-profile explosions and fatalities, and getting industry to give closer scrutiny to the high-pressure long-distance oil lines.

Only after one of the low-stress feeder lines belonging to BP sprung a leak last March, dumping an estimated 201,000 gallons of oil onto the tundra, did the issue move to the front burner at the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, a successor to the pipeline safety office.

The agency's chief, Thomas Barrett, said in an interview Wednesday that the agency began working on possible regulation of low-stress pipes about 18 months ago, but he acknowledged now "we've accelerated this process."

Barrett said he expects a formal notice for regulations in a few weeks and possibly a final rule before the end of the year.

"It's gotten a lot of attention," said Barrett, a retired vice admiral who in May became the agency's first administrator.

At a congressional hearing last April, Transportation Department officials acknowledged that increased federal oversight of the low-stress feeder lines had been last on the priority list when dealing with directives Congress had issued...

[trumandogz]

The Clinton crisis continues.

[BW2221]

While I despise Clinton, to be fair, the current problem is one of BP's making - not Slick Willie's.

[SandRat]

remind me again just who was elected to run the store in '92 & '96 and was soooooooo environmentally friendly.

[jdm]

** Regulators were told in 1992 to beef up pipeline scrutiny **

"Bush's Fault!"

[printhead]

Pipelines transport oil, hence the Transportation Dept? Why not regulate the electric companies, wires transport electricity? Does anyone know why the Transportation Dept? This is still "No Profiling" Norm Mineta, right?

[E. Pluribus Unum]

So regulators telling the petroleum industry how to build and maintain their pipelines would do anything other than create a cancerous bureacracy for government employees to get a paycheck from?

Give me a break.

The oil industry has plenty of economic incentive alone to keep its pipelines serviceable.

How much petroleum does the government produce?

[BallyBill]

I've liked to cut oil and energy companies a break because I figure much of their monies go to R&D and maintenance. I blame BP and the industry, not the government for crap like this. That is their profit flowing through them pipes, you think they'd be on the ball.

[PA Engineer]

Here is the link to the DOT Office of Pipeline Safety:

Office of Pipeline Safety

[thackney]

This particular pipeline is not a DOT regulated pipeline. TAPS is. That said, I understand that DOT is involved in this investigation. The pipeline that leaked is a pipeline interior to the BP facility.