This
web site is an effort by the Pipeline Safety Foundation
to provide those facts -- comprehensively, verifiably --
to a broad range of users from top policy-makers to homeowners
interested in learning more about the potential solutions,
as well as the hazards and problems, of America's oil
and natural gas pipeline system.
We
have organized this web site to make it easy for users to
find what they need on-line to make informed decisions about
pipelines. We provide many key documents and data sources
in their full text, others in links to numerous web sites,
and for still others a road map to find them. We seek to
provide up-to-date information, breaking news stories, and
the background context in which pipeline companies operate.
We are also eager to hear from you with your information,
tips on pipeline accidents or unsafe conditions, and industry
or regulator whistleblowers.
In
short, we seek to provide the facts you need to work for
pipeline safety reforms, a forum you can contribute to,
and guidance on how to make yourselves heard by policy-makers.
A
Stronger Pipeline Safety Act
Ostensibly
enacted to protect the public safety and environment, the
federal Pipeline Safety Act instead enables oil and natural
gas pipeline companies to avoid responsibility for its unacceptable
number and severity of accidents.
Among
the most important reforms to the act which the Pipeline Safety
Foundation seeks are:
- Add
release liability provisions similar to those in the Oil
Pollution Act of 1990, which have resulted in over a 60
percent reduction in large releases by other modes of transporting
petroleum in the United States.
- Amend
the citizen suit provisions to facilitate private enforcement
actions, such as injunctions to correct dangerous conditions
of pipelines.
- Enable
states to protect their public and environment by deleting
preemption of state standards for interstate pipelines that
are more stringent than federal standards.
- Provide
states with the resources and authority to be full partners
with the Office of Pipeline Safety (OPS) in developing and
enforcing safety and environmental standards.
- Eliminate
the "regulatory reform" cost-benefit provisions that enable
rigged analyses to prevent meaningful regulatory improvements
from being adopted.
- Objectively
review the "Risk Management Demonstration Project," which
has exempted several companies from federal regulations.
- Authorize
spending levels for the OPS that enable this chronically-underfunded
agency to provide adequate enforcement, research and technical
assistance.
A
More Effective Office of Pipeline Safety
With
few resources to perform even its most basic functions, and
a history of lax standards and enforcement, the OPS has failed
repeatedly to respond to the challenge of improving pipeline
safety.
- Develop
a comprehensive mapping program that locates all interstate
and intrastate pipelines that goes beyond the current voluntary,
piecemeal project, and provide these maps to affected state
and local governments.
- Adopt
stringent standards in such areas as periodic testing by
best available technologies, accurate leak detection measures,
corrosion protection, useful life standards for older pipelines,
operating personnel certification, and enhanced standards
in environmentally sensitive areas.
- Eliminate
the exemption of "gathering lines" and other rural low-pressure
pipelines which allow operators to avoid federal regulation
altogether.
- Enforce
standards with improved inspections, including physical
examinations of high-risk pipelines, thorough investigation
of serious accidents and safety violations, full use of
civil penalties, transparent enforcement proceedings, and
improved collection and analysis of accident data.
- Develop
a program with state and local governments to improve land-use
regulations, such as setback requirements at pipeline rights-of-way,
to prevent urban encroachments that increase the danger
of third-party damage.
- Encourage
states with limited or no intrastate pipeline regulatory
programs to establish such programs as partners with the
OPS.
- Conduct research and development
to assess effectiveness of promising new technologies and
regulatory approaches.
- Develop
a comprehensive strategy to replace the nation's aging
and deteriorating pipeline infrastructure.
Other
Reforms
- The
pipeline industry should reverse the decline in spending
by operators on maintenance, prevention, detection and cleanup
budgets, as well as increase the share of its revenues devoted
to replacement of its aging infrastructure.
- State
and local governments should take the initiative to develop
more effective pipeline regulatory and emergency response
programs, as well as develop land-use and building code
regulations to protect rights-of-way of existing pipelines
from encroachment and to site new pipelines away from residential
and commercial developments and environmentally sensitive
areas.
- The
National Research Council should undertake a comprehensive
study of pipeline safety that includes best available data
on the true extent of pipeline accidents and their risk
factors, similar to the 1993 Risk Assessment Report
by the California State Fire Marshal.
- National
environmental and other public interest organizations should
adopt as a high priority the reform of pipeline safety laws
and regulations.
 Bob
Rackleff is a corporate speechwriter, pipeline safety consultant,
and elected public official in Tallahassse, Florida. As a
speechwriter, he serves such corporate and nonprofit clients
as United Technologies, AOL Time Warner, Vivendi Universal,
Ford Foundation, and Collins Center for Public Policy. He
also provides research and advocacy services about pipeline
safety for environmental and other organizations. As a Leon
County Commissioner since 1998, he has applied smart growth
and sustainability principles in such areas as transportation,
growth management and economic development.
Before
returning to Tallahassee in 1986, Rackleff was a speechwriter
for President Jimmy Carter, U.S. Senator Ed Muskie, and the
Chairman of Time Inc. He is also a retired Naval Reserve Intelligence
Officer; his last billet was managing editor, Naval Intelligence
Quarterly. He earned a bachelor's and master's degree
in U.S. history at Florida State University, where he also
completed all requirements but a dissertation for a doctorate,
also in U.S. history.
He
publishes widely on environmental and pipeline safety subjects,
including articles in the Washington Post, Vital
Speeches, Environmental Action magazine, and a
1972 book, Close to Crisis: Florida's Environmental Problems.
After
leading a grassroots organization in North Florida that stopped
the construction of a proposed gasoline tank farm and pipeline
in 1995 after a six-year battle, he helped found the National
Pipeline Reform Coalition, which seeks federal legislation
and regulation for safer pipelines, and the Pipeline Safety
Foundation, a Web-based clearinghouse of information and documents.
He
has been a consultant on pipeline safety for the Environmental
Defense Fund, Florida Alliance, City of Fredericksburg (VA),
Cascade-Columbia Alliance and other organizations. He has
served on the Environmental Experts Committee, New Jersey
Institute of Technology Pipeline Infrastructure Study, and
Florida Department of Environmental Protection Advisory Committee
on Aboveground Storage Tanks. He was also an invited participant
at the OPS Public Hearing on Improving the Pipeline Safety
Program (1995), USDOT National Pipeline Safety Summit (1994),
and the EPA Forum on Aboveground Storage Tanks (1993).
He
may be reached by email
through this site or by telephone at 850-222-9789.
Speeches
and Articles About Pipeline Safety by Bob Rackleff
Friends
of the Aquifer: "Communities
Against the Pipeline" Meeting in Woodstock, Illinois,
June 11, 1996
Friends
of the Aquifer: "Buckingham
Area Homeowners" Meeting Fort Myers, Florida, July
26, 1995
National
Pipeline Reform Coalition Propeller Club of Washington,
DC, May 7, 1998
"Grieving
Carlsbad," opinion article, Albuquerque Tribune,
September 9, 2000. http://www.co.leon.fl.us/BCC/rackleff/issues/pipeline.htm.
"Pipelines:
A National Perspective," keynote address, National
Pipeline Reform Conference, Washington, DC, April 9, 2000.
Remarks
at American Petroleum Institute Refining Environmental Workshop,
Orlando, FL, September 30, 1998.
Remarks
at the Cascade Columbia Alliance Board of Directors Retreat,
Issaquah, WA, February 7, 1998.
Remarks
at a public meeting of the Communities Against the Pipeline,
Woodstock, IL, June 11, 1996.
"The
Public Must Demand Gas Pipeline Safety," letter to
editor, New York Times, January 25, 1995.
Testimony
before the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, U.S.
House Committee on Public Works and Transportation, Washington,
DC, May 18, 1993.
"The
Environmental Dangers of Oil Pipelines," remarks
at a meeting of the Gulf of Mexico Fisheries Council, Mobile,
AL, March 10, 1992.
"Out
of Line," article, Environmental Action, November/December,
1991.
"Get
Off Your Tanks and Do Something!" Aboveground
Tank Update, November, 1991.
Testimony
before the Subcommittee on Surface Transportation, U.S. House
Committee on Public Works and Transportation, Washington,
DC, September 25, 1991.
"The
Oozing of America," opinion article, Washington
Post, September 15, 1991.
Statement
before the Subcommittee on Energy and Power U.S. House
Committee on Commerce and Energy Hearing on "Pipeline
Safety Act of 1991" (H.R. 1489) Washington, D.C. May
22, 1991.
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