HR 4937 Introduced – PIPES Act

Last week Rep. Denham (R,CA) introduced  HR 4937, the Protecting our Infrastructure of Pipelines and Enhancing Safety (PIPES) Act of 2016. This bill would reauthorize the Pipeline Safety Regulations (PSR) enforced by DOT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration (PHMSA). The Senate passed their version of this bill (S 2276) last month by unanimous consent.

S 2276 vs HR 4937

While there are many similarities between the two bills, there are also many differences. S 2276 is a larger bill, containing 11 sections not found in HR 4937. Those sections are:

Sec. 5. Statutory preference.

Sec. 10. Pipeline odorization study.

Sec. 13. Research and development.

Sec. 20. Surface transportation security review.

Sec. 21. Small scale liquefied natural gas facilities.

Sec. 22. Report on natural gas leak reporting.

Sec. 23. Comptroller General review of State policies relating to natural gas leaks.

Sec. 24. Provision of response plans to appropriate committees of Congress.

Sec. 25. Consultation with FERC as part of pre-filing procedures and permitting process for new natural gas pipeline infrastructure.

Sec. 26. Maintenance of effort.

Sec. 27. Aliso Canyon natural gas leak task force.

While HR 4937 is a shorter bill, it also contains a number (5) of sections not included in the Senate version. Those sections are:

Sec. 14. Safety data sheets.

Sec. 16. Emergency order authority.

Sec. 17. State grant funds.

Sec. 20. Pipeline safety technical assistance grants.

Sec. 21. Study of materials and corrosion prevention in pipeline transportation.

Committee Markup

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee met this morning to conduct a markup hearing that included HR 4937. Four amendments to the bill were offered, a Manager’s amendment that included two new sections for the bill, a minor word change amendment from Rep. Sanford (R,SC) and two amendments from Rep. Nolan (D,MN) regarding steel used in pipes. The first two amendments were passed by voice votes (34-25 and 34-25 respectively). The amended bill was approved by a voice vote; this was described as a unanimous vote by the Committee press release.

The two new sections added by the Manager’s amendment include:

SEC. ­___ Research and Development.

SEC. ___ Active and Abandoned Pipelines.

The first closely replicates one of the sections found in S 2276.

Moving Forward

This bill is likely to move to the House floor within the next month or so. The relatively small number of amendments offered in Committee and the voice vote in adoption indicate that the bill is likely to pass with substantial bipartisan support when considered by the whole House. The bill would probably be addressed under a rule allowing debate and limited floor amendments.

Because of the extensive differences between the House and Senate bills, there would likely be a conference committee appointed to work out the differences between the two bills. It is very likely that a conference report could be completed before the summer recess making this one of a relatively small number of bills that would land on the President’s desk before the elections this fall.

S 2276 Passes in Senate

At the close of yesterday’s session the Senate considered and passed S 2276, the Securing America’s Future Energy: Protecting our Infrastructure of Pipelines and Enhancing Safety (SAFE PIPES) Act after adopting substitute language to the language reported out of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. There was no debate on the bill and it was adopted by unanimous consent (which means no vote was taken).

Revisions to the Original Bill

The Committee removed one section from the original bill that would have established the Great Lakes as an ecological resource under 49 CFR 195.6(b). It also added a number of new sections:

Sec. 4. Hazardous materials identification numbers.

Sec. 10. Pipeline odorization study.

Sec. 17. Joint inspection and oversight.

Sec. 21. Small scale liquefied natural gas facilities.

Sec. 22. Report on natural gas leak reporting.

Sec. 23. Comptroller General review of State policies relating to natural gas leaks.

Sec. 24. Provision of response plans to appropriate committees of Congress.

Sec. 25. Consultation with FERC as part of pre-filing procedures and permitting process for new natural gas pipeline infrastructure.

The substitute language adopted by the Senate yesterday included two additional new sections:

Sec. 26. Maintenance of effort.

Sec. 27. Aliso Canyon natural gas leak task force.

Moving Forward

The House has just started work on their version of the pipeline safety reauthorization bill. The House is unlikely to take up S 2276 until it has considered their homegrown version of the bill. There are many areas of general agreement between the current draft bill being considered in the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, but there are certainly differences that will have to be worked out.

Commentary

The study on odorization of ‘all combustible gas in transportation’ should provide an interesting look at the problem with a current, very basic safety rule. In general flammable gasses used for fuel (propane, natural gas, etc) are odorized by the addition of an odiferous contaminant. This is done because the chemical mixtures in their produced state are not detectable by the human senses of sight or smell. Without the addition of these stinky chemical additives leaks of these materials in transportation could be very dangerous. With the addition of very small amounts of these organic contaminants people at the scene of a transportation accident can readily tell when there is a leak and take appropriate precautions.

All very good until you realize that not all of these flammable gasses are used as fuels. They are frequently used as feedstocks for a variety of other chemical manufacturing processes. Because these odorants are not found in the pure chemical they frequently cause problems in the chemical reactions that are used to make other chemical products and they are difficult (read expensive) to remove. So when these flammable chemicals are shipped as chemical feed stocks rather than fuel, they are typically shipped without the addition of the odorants.

I currently live in a refinery town and frequently see tank trucks transporting propane on our local streets that are marked with the phrase “No Odorants Added”. This is done to notify first responders that they cannot rely on the ‘typical’ smell of the odorized product to warn them of a leak in the event of an accident. They would then take additional precautions when coming upon an accident scene of one of these marked trucks such as making precautionary evacuations and employing a variety of gas detectors as they approach the accident.

There are however times where these non-modified flammable gasses are transported in pipelines. In those situations, when a pipeline leak occurs that is not physically obvious, there is nothing to warn people in the immediate area of the potential danger of fire and explosions. Even if there were very effective leak detection equipment on the pipeline there would be a substantial time delay between when the pipeline control center is notified of the leak and when that notification can be relayed to the immediate area of the leak. In that time delay, serious problems can occur.

As a chemist I fully understand that these odorants can be a problem for chemical manufacturing processes. At the very least the odorant would make it through the manufacturing process unchanged and provide an unpleasant odor to the finished product that could make it unusable. In the worst case you could have side reactions take place between the odorant chemical and other necessary chemicals in the process that would make the final product unusable. And, of course, in some cases there would be no noticeable changes because of the very low concentrations of these odorants in the flammable gas.

There are a variety of mitigation measures that could be put into place where it is necessary to transport un-odorized flammable gasses by pipeline. One way would be to reduce the potential for leaks by establishing that the entire route of such a pipeline would be considered to be a high consequence area (HCA) requiring the additional safety management controls currently used when pipelines transit residential areas. Another measure could be to put local alarms in place that would be activated by advanced leak detection equipment. Another could be to require the employment of gas detectors with local alarms as leak detection equipment where ever these types of pipelines transited current HCAs.

The one short coming of the odorization study provisions of §10 in this bill is that it does not require PHMSA to do a comprehensive review of current and potential mitigation measures that could be employed. The closest it comes is a requirement to do a cost-benefit comparison of odorizing all flammable gases and “using other methods to mitigate pipeline leaks” {§10(3)}.

S 2276 Introduced – Safe Pipes Act

Earlier this month Sen Fischer (R,NE) introduced S 2276, the Securing America’s Future Energy: Protecting our Infrastructure of Pipelines and Enhancing Safety (SAFE PIPES) Act. The bill authorizes expenditures for the DOT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration’s (PHMSA) pipeline safety programs. It also requires a number of pipeline related studies and reports to Congress and some relatively minor rulemakings.

Reports to Congress

Section 3 of the bill requires the Secretary of Transportation to report to Congress on the status of a number of rulemaking activities required by Congress. Specifically mentioned are final rules required by Pipeline Safety Regulatory Certainty and Job Creation Act of 2011 (PL 112–90). Those include:

• Integrity management {§5(f)};

• Leak detection {§8(b)}; and

• Accident and incident notification {§9(a)}.

Other reports required in the bill include:

• Natural gas integrity management review {§5};

• Hazardous liquid integrity management review {§6};

• Study on improving location mapping technology {§9};

• Workforce of pipeline and hazardous materials safety administration {§10};

• Nationwide integrated pipeline safety regulatory database {§13};

New Regulation Requirements

This bill would require the Secretary to initiate a number of new rulemaking requirements; including:

• Underground natural gas storage facilities safety standard {§14}; and

• Defining the Great Lakes as an ecological resource under 49 CFR 195.6(b) {§16};

Pipeline Security

There is one minor reference to pipeline security issues in the bill. Section 17 of the bill requires the GAO to conduct a surface transportation security review that specifically addresses “the staffing, resource allocation, oversight strategy, and management of the Transportation Security Administration’s pipeline security program and other surface transportation programs”.

Moving Forward

Fisher is the Chair of the Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety and Security Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Science and Transportation Committee, so this bill will certainly be considered in Committee.

The bill does not contain any obviously controversial political riders that doom so many authorization bills, so it is likely that this bill (after being amended on the floor of the Senate) would be able to pass with substantial bipartisan support. It is possible that this bill will be considered in the Senate before the end of the year.

Bills Introduced – 11-10-15

Yesterday there were 21 bills introduced in the Senate (the House is back in their districts for Veterans Day and the Senate left last night). Of those two may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

S 2270 A bill to address voluntary location tracking of electronic communications devices, and for other purposes. Sen. Franken, Al [D-MN]

S 2276 A bill to amend title 49, United States Code, to provide enhanced safety in pipeline transportation, and for other purposes. Sen. Fischer, Deb [R-NE]

S 2270 is more than a bit of a reach for possible coverage on this blog but that ‘for other purposes’ bothers me.

S 2276 is almost certainly going to be followed in this blog; just have to wait and see what the details are in the bill.