Senator blocks pipeline safety bill 5

[brimmer]

Senator blocks pipeline safety bill.

http://news.yahoo.com/senator-blocks-pipeline-safety-bill-principle-070809432.html

Who cares about protecting the public or environment? Its the principle that counts. Is he serious...

 

[blacksmith37]

Yeah , I want government clowns having more control of pipeline engineers. I remember when the Federal clown incharge on cathodic protection ( Lance something?) stood up at a NACE meeting (to ask a question) and the group tried to explain cathodic protection to him.

 

[MikeHalloran]

He's serious.

Given that the concept of regular pipeline inspection is supported by industry trade groups, and given that the process should and could be self-supporting based on user fees, what does government involvement add? Confusion, uncertainty, paperwork, hidden costs, lobbying money, influence peddling, and unwanted unwarranted meddling in technical decisions for sociopolitical reasons, for starters.

There's no _functional_ reason why pipeline inspections and standards could not be controlled by a trade organization or two, with incentives to inspect provided by insurance carriers.

They could start today, if they could be weaned from the Federal teat. I think that's where he's going.





Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[Duwe6]

Concur with MikeHalloran, there is nothing wrong with current industry standards. It is just the owner/operators that refuse to follow them. Two suggestions to cure that problem:

1 -- Increase the fines by 2 orders of magnitude, and make the minimum cost for loss-of-life $10 million. Makes 'benign neglect' and 'we just didn't know there were any problems' too expensive to continue to practice. Currently, the $$ risk is lower than the $$ cost of adequate inspection & repairs of old, decrepit lines.

2 -- We seen to be in the same condition that ASME Boiler Code and NBIC were in the 1910's and 1920's. If people follow the rules, you get a safe product, but only *some* of the owners follow the rules. The *only* new law needed is to make following API legally required, and to be independently inspected using Authorized Inspectors from insurance agencies or state Boards. Just like NBIC.

When ASME & NBIC were legally mandated, boilers quit killing and maiming buildings full of people. It appears time to apply this proven 'fix' to pipelines.

 

[JJPellin]

In the article, it states the following:

"The bill is supported by the industry's major trade associations —the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, the American Gas Association and the Association of Oil Pipelines — as well as the Pipeline Safety Trust, a safety advocacy group. The measure is "a balanced solution to the very important issue of improving the safety of pipelines," said Martin Edwards, the interstate gas association's top lobbyist."

They may recognize that some federal regulation can be beneficial in as much as it places them in a better position in terms of legal liability if an accident were to occur.


Johnny Pellin

 

[zdas04]

I just read the bill (16 pages) and I applaud Ron Paul for blocking the garbage procedural shortcut that would have prevented there being a record of who voted for this crap. That is all he has done. The bill can still come to the floor for a roll-call vote, but then when the true costs of the bill come to light there will be a record of who voted for this multi-billion dollar tax increase (first year it adds $50 million to the budget of the PHMSA, the cost to industry to provide the additional information they want will be many billions more).

This bill does nothing to improve public safety and a lot to increase the ability of government to impose their agenda on industry.

Among the less palatable provisions (listed in order that I saw them):
1. Fines of $250k/day and the PHMSA decides when the violation started and ended.
2. Fines are not subject to the administrative caps that other regulations are subject to.
3. Increase staff by 40 people (too many to pay, too few to do any good)
4. All design documents for a pipeline must be submitted to the government (and the industry must pay for the government slugs to learn enough to understand them. Fees are at a rate determined by the Secretary and are not negotiable)
5. Adds all gathering to the PHMSA Jurisdictional category (the groups that supported this regulation couldn't care less about non-regulated gathering, this will add many millions of dollars to the cost of new field development without doing a damn thing to protect the public).

David

 

[brimmer]

Good discussion. Let me play the role of devil's advocate here. Items which would increase public safety on the surface:
-subjecting offshore liquid pipelines within the inletes of GoM to the same standards as other hazard liquid pipelines
- extending integrity management systems beyond high consequence areas (do we think pipelines outside of these areas should have no integrity management systems?)
- requiring an operator of a hazardous liquid pipeline to use leak detection systems (I hope they all have leak detection systems already)
- verify MAOP on gas transmission lines (well, hopefully operators know the MAOP of their pipelines)
- Onshore gathering lines - review of lines not regulated under title 49 and submit recommendations with regards to: sufficiency of existing laws and regulations, economical and technical practability of applying exisitng regualtions to unregulated gathering lines, and modification of exisitng regulatory exemptions.

Of course, the U.S. could change philosophy and adapt the regulatory framework of most other nations, going to a goal orientated regualtory system instead of a prescriptive one, or is it already too late for that? These systems punish repeat offenders (revoke license to operate), and leaves the honest one's alone. Or is it that in the U.S. if there were no prescriptive regulations, operators would simply do nothing or as little as possible? I don't think we would have to go down this path if all operators were resonsible to begin with, some of the incidents, operator integrity philosophy, and integrity programs (or lack there of) are causing this.

 

[zdas04]

Brimmer,
Senator Paul's actions are absolutely not about pipeline safety (I don't think that the bill is about pipeline safety either, but that is neither here nor there). His actions are to prevent this bill from becoming law through a technicality that prevents a roll-call vote on it. If he loses (or gives in) then the bill will become law through a voice vote and when (not if) it becomes clear that it is horribly expensive and kills projects and jobs without improving safety, we won't be able to go back and see which congressional idiot voted for or against it. Rand Paul is standing in the way of procedural trickery (not pipeline safety) and I applaud him for it.

The bill simply directs the PHMSA to promulgate regulations. Those regulations then have the force of law without any requirement for Congress to vote on the regulations. This is the problem that many of us have with the EPA. The PHMSA will use lawyers to write technical regulations (just like the EPA does) and the result will be offensive garbage, not safer pipelines.

David

 

[Latexman]

Rand is a lot like Daddy, a.k.a. "Dr. No".

Good luck,
Latexman

 

[zdas04]

If the "No" is directed at the federal government assuming roles properly assigned to the states then I'm a fan. I heard his daddy on TV night before last and I'm a fan. The recurring theme was "The federal government doesn't do very many things really well, and most things that governments should do can be done better by community, county, and even state governments--small unit government entities are much more accountable than the federal government will ever be". I can't see a major flaw in that argument, if it leads to uneven "benefits" then people can shop with their feet and go to where the government matches their needs and if this results in states with welfare systems that they can't afford then they can starve in the dark.

David

 

[TJOrlowski]

Wow, I like the attitudes in this thread! If only the majority of Americans held the same attitude with respect to other industries, like . . . healthcare and health insurance, tort law, banking, and other such things where the federal government always only costs us more money, without guaranteeing that a better product gets delivered to market.

-TJ Orlowski

 

[BigInch]

It's just a thinly vailed "Little Me" ploy, you can even see the strings that Big Daddy is pulling, with the lobbies paying their usual lip service to the public, after funding their senate mercenaries, while they try to keep their strings just a little more transparent.

Leaving the politics out of it, it's been plainly obvious to me that there has been a need for gathering system standardization (I'll fall short of calling for regulation) since I first saw what was going on out there in 1982. (Offshore Federal was loosly regulated (MMS).) Fortunately most of them are gas lines and little visible pollution remains after they blow up on what I have also seen is at times a weekly basis. We (JQP) only hear about the oil line breaks, unless there happened to be a spark at the wrong time and the gas ignited and pushed the mess into the headlines. I've said time and time again, there is not even a minimum standard for anything out there and the only thing that keeps people from getting killed on a regular basis is that there is nobody out there except for the odd packpacker from time to time with the good luck not to step on an unregulated pipeline. Maybe a low kill ratio is a valid reason not to have any regulations, maybe not. Why wouldn't that reasoning also apply to a refinery built out in the middle of nowhere. It doesn't apply to an offshore well in federal oceans, or to systems installed on US Gov land (BLM regulations are applied) I'm just saying here to simply be prepared if you do like backpacking.

The lack of anything positive in regard to unregulated systems out there having continued for the last 100 years makes it unlikely that anything will be done about it by either industry or government in the next 100 years, the lesson being that this particular headline is just another political movement under a big puff of smoke that will accomplish nothing but gaining publicity for the current actors, publicity good or bad, in these days of celebrity culture, being beneficial in the long run. As zdas says, the bill is of no innate use in any case, but with the current political climate, what else would we have expected. Just another bone to pick off nobody's particular carcas for somebody's political agenda.

We are more connected to everyone in the world than we've ever been before, except to the person sitting next to us. Lisa Gansky

 

[zdas04]

Pressurized piping needs to be built to an objective standard. I don't think that anyone would disagree with that. The problem is that the standard must make sense. If the existing regulations for jurisdictional gathering systems are any indication, the regulations that come from this "Pipeline Safety" law won't. I had a DOT inspector tell me that I had to document cathodic training for the operators of an HDPE line before I could start it up. The regulation exempts plastic lines from requiring cathodic, but it doesn't exempt operators of plastic lines from the training and certification provisions. I asked him what the value of the training would be to the cosmos and he said that he "didn't make the rules, just enforced them". Yeah, making operators create the required documentation for non-jurisdictional gathering systems is going to be a cost-effective enhancement to public safety. NOT. I've had to do that once when a land owner invited 30 relatives to move their house trailers onto his land on top of a gathering system. It was very expensive to create the missing documentation and install cathodic (line had been in the ground 50 years without a corrosion failure, also without records of construction standards, static test results, or cathodic inspections).

Rand Paul's actions have nothing to do with the content of the bill, they are trying to stop the trickery that would allow all of those slime to pass [bad] legislation without tying their name to it. That's all, he's preventing an anonymous voice vote and forcing a roll-call vote. I don't care who's idea that was, I like it.

David

 

[BigInch]

Yes, operators of pipelines and other potentially dangerous processes must have documented training. If some inspector says it must include training for cathodic protection, I see his problem, but I still don't see THE problem. It is a one liner. "You don't need to know anything about cathodic protection." "Now let's move on to knowing where your shutdown valves are."

You mention that encroachment is a problem, so why not document the systems now, as that will allow public officials and the gas companies to know when encroachment is happening. There are pleanty of systems out there today where they would be lucky to find a valve if they had to turn off a segment or two. If they knew where their lines are now, they might actually be able to tell if 50 mobile homes are moving in on top of them. As it is now, many of them wouldn't even know.

No matter how expensive documenting a system is today, it will just be more expensive to do it tomorrow, so doing it today is probably cost effective, if it is ever going to be done at all, or are you saying that it never should be?

Most "still-developing" countries are miles ahead of the US in documenting potentially dangerous installations in their territories. In fact, they never would even have thought to allow such wild-wild west practices to ever get started.

And sorry, but I've also gotta say that its getting a little boring hearing about oil companies with no money. The facts are that its a big boy's game and it's going to cost more and more to play as time goes on for one reason or another and, if they arn't prepared to anty up, well then I'm afraid they should simply be told "Gt on your bike". At least the industry lobbiests finally realize it's not making them look good continuing to oppose what is inevitible, while touting the excessive cost and regulation issues and getting others to fight the anomonous battle for them, no matter how long it will apparently take to do it.

What I can't argue about is that one big pile of crap is better than two little piles and this problem just seems to be getting better as time rolls on.

We are more connected to everyone in the world than we've ever been before, except to the person sitting next to us. Lisa Gansky

 

[zdas04]

I can't argue, I've made every one of those points to clients. Every system I've built has had valves, documentation, etc. My problem is that I keep having to fix old crappy undocumented systems that are within a few years of abandoment. The "wild west" crap that was done for the last 100 years may not have been a good idea, but is is what is in the ground. Stuff going in the ground today tends to be a lot closer to reasonable.

The issue with the inspector was not settled with a one-liner. He ordered locks put on the system valves until we could document that the pipeline operators had their cathodic certificates. And the following year, the first thing he asked for was docummentation on the operation of the cathodic stations (there were none) and he was going to shut us down again until I called his boss. He was able to require the operators go back for refresher training in cathodic protection.

David

 

[BigInch]

That's because you argued with him. If you managed to just say Yes Sir, You can bet your bottom dollar that we will do that starting tomorrow morning, you'd have seen the last of him. If he does come again, ask him to get out and open the lease gate for you, but a week before go out and tie a baby rattle on the bushes over by the gate stop. That should be the last you'll ever see of that guy.

We are more connected to everyone in the world than we've ever been before, except to the person sitting next to us. Lisa Gansky