North Dakota Oil Spill Spotlights Obama Delay on Rules
By Mark Drajem & Jim Efstathiou Jr. - Oct 29, 2013 12:00 AM ET
Three years after an oil pipeline rupture in Michigan spilled 843,000 gallons of sludge, government regulators still have not produced promised rules to compel operators to detect leaks.
An oil spill in North Dakota last month and the continued debate over construction of TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s Keystone XL Pipeline have led to renewed criticism about the government’s inaction on pipeline safety.
“It’s outrageous,” Rick Kessler, president of the Pipeline Safety Trust and a Washington lobbyist, said in an interview. “This is glacial. It’s incredibly frustrating, and there never is a straight answer about where the bottleneck is.”
Pipeline safety, a little-noticed backwater of Washington policy making, has grown in attention and political importance in recent years as the boom in North Dakota and Texas oil production and the hydraulic fracturing revolution for natural gas means the U.S. pipeline network is both expanding and increasingly active.
“As the U.S. produces more oil and gas, we have to remain vigilant,” said Brigham McCown, the former head of the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administrators. “If production is going to go up, inspections will have to go up as well.”
McCown, who’s now a lawyer in Texas, and industry representatives say it’s not new rules that are needed, but attention from regulators and industry to adhere to the rules now in place.
more:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-29/north-dakota-oil-spill-spotlights-obama-delay-on-rules.html
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