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97–940 2016

OVERSIGHT OF THE PIPELINE SAFETY, 

REGULATORY CERTAINTY, AND JOB CREATION 

ACT OF 2011 AND RELATED ISSUES 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND POWER 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND 

COMMERCE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

JULY 14, 2015 

Serial No. 114–67 

( 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce 

energycommerce.house.gov 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE 

FRED UPTON, Michigan 

Chairman 

JOE BARTON, Texas 

Chairman Emeritus 

ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky 

JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois 

JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania 

GREG WALDEN, Oregon 

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas 

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee 

Vice Chairman 

STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana 

ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio 

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington 

GREGG HARPER, Mississippi 

LEONARD LANCE, New Jersey 

BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky 

PETE OLSON, Texas 

DAVID B. MCKINLEY, West Virginia 

MIKE POMPEO, Kansas 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia 

GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida 

BILL JOHNSON, Ohio 

BILLY LONG, Missouri 

RENEE L. ELLMERS, North Carolina 

LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana 

BILL FLORES, Texas 

SUSAN W. BROOKS, Indiana 

MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma 

RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina 

CHRIS COLLINS, New York 

KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota 

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey 

Ranking Member 

BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois 

ANNA G. ESHOO, California 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado 

LOIS CAPPS, California 

MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania 

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois 

G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina 

DORIS O. MATSUI, California 

KATHY CASTOR, Florida 

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

BEN RAY LUJA ́ N, New Mexico 

PAUL TONKO, New York 

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky 

YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York 

DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa 

KURT SCHRADER, Oregon 

JOSEPH P. KENNEDY, III, Massachusetts 

TONY CA ́ RDENAS, California 

(III) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND POWER

ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky 

Chairman 

PETE OLSON, Texas 

Vice Chairman 

JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois 

JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania 

ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio 

GREGG HARPER, Vice Chairman 

DAVID B. MCKINLEY, West Virginia 

MIKE POMPEO, Kansas 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia 

BILL JOHNSON, Ohio 

BILLY LONG, Missouri 

RENEE L. ELLMERS, North Carolina 

BILL FLORES, Texas 

MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma 

RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina 

JOE BARTON, Texas 

FRED UPTON, Michigan (ex officio) 

BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois 

Ranking Member 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

PAUL TONKO, New York 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

LOIS CAPPS, California 

MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania 

KATHY CASTOR, Florida 

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky 

DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa 

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey (ex 

officio) 

(V) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hon. Ed Whitfield, a Representative in Congress from the Commonwealth 

of Kentucky, opening statement ......................................................................... 1 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 2 

Hon. Bobby L. Rush, a Representative in Congress from the State of Illinois, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 3 

Hon. Fred Upton, a Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 5 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 6 

Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the State of 

New Jersey, opening statement .......................................................................... 7 

WITNESSES

Stacy Cummings, Interim Executive Director, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration ................................................................................. 8 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 11 

Stan Wise, Commissioner, Georgia Public Service Commission (on behalf 

of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners) .................. 56 

Prepared statement 1 ........................................................................................ 58 

Donald Santa, President and CEO, Interstate Natural Gas Association of 

America ................................................................................................................. 75 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 77 

Ron Bradley, Vice President of Gas Operations, PECO Energy (on behalf 

of the American Gas Association) ....................................................................... 84 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 86 

Andrew Black, President and CEO, Association of Oil Pipe Lines ..................... 103 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 105 

Carl Weimer, Executive Director, Pipeline Safety Trust ..................................... 116 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 118 

Dianne Black, Assistant Director of Planning and Development, County of 

Santa Barbara, California ................................................................................... 138 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 140 

SUBMITTED MATERIAL

Corrective Action Orders from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety 

Administration to the Plains Pipeline Company ............................................... 160 

1 The addendum to Mr. Wise’s testimony is available at: http:// 

docs.house.gov/meetings/if/if03/20150714/103737/hhrg-114-if03-wstatewises-20150714.pdf. 

(1) 

OVERSIGHT OF THE PIPELINE SAFETY, REGULATORY CERTAINTY, AND JOB CREATION 

ACT OF 2011 AND RELATED ISSUES 

JULY 14, 2015 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND POWER, 

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:16 a.m., in room 

2123 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ed Whitfield 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Members present: Representatives Whitfield, Olson, Shimkus, 

Pitts, Latta, Harper, McKinley, Kinzinger, Griffith, Johnson, Long, 

Flores, Mullin, Hudson, Upton (ex officio), Rush, McNerney, Tonko, 

Green, Capps, Sarbanes, Loebsack, and Pallone (ex officio). 

Staff present: Nick Abraham, Legislative Associate, Energy and 

Power; Will Batson, Legislative Clerk; Leighton Brown, Press Assistant; Allison Busbee, Policy Coordinator, Energy and Power; 

Tom Hassenboehler, Chief Counsel, Energy and Power; A.T. Johnston, Senior Policy Advisor; Brandon Mooney, Professional Staff 

Member, Energy and Power; Mark Ratner, Policy Advisor to the 

Chairman; Dan Schneider, Press Secretary; Caitlin Haberman, 

Democratic Professional Staff Member; Ashley Jones, Democratic 

Director of Communications, Member Services and Outreach; Rick 

Kessler, Democratic Senior Advisor and Staff Director, Energy and 

Environment; John Marshall, Democratic Policy Coordinator; and 

Alexander Ratner, Democratic Policy Analyst. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ED WHITFIELD, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY 

Mr. WHITFIELD. I would like to call the hearing to order this 

morning, and I would like to recognize myself for a 5-minute opening statement. 

This morning we are going to be conducting an oversight hearing 

on the Pipeline Safety, Regulatory Certainty, and Job Creation Act 

of 2011, and its implementation of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). I certainly want to welcome the interim Executive Director of PHMSA, as well as a second 

panel that includes representatives of the oil and natural gas industry, local government and witnesses with other perspectives. 

It has been more than 3 years since the Pipeline Safety Act was 

enacted, and PHMSA’s implementation has not been satisfactory. 

2 

Many of the mandates; at least 17 out of 42 included in the Pipeline Safety Act, have not been completed, including several described as key mandates with potentially large impacts on pipeline 

operations nationwide. The potential consequences of these delays 

are serious. In May, a significant oil spill occurred in Santa Barbara, California, and just days ago the same company reported another incident in Illinois. The committee has written letters both to 

PHMSA and this company seeking more information. It cannot be 

said for certain that full implementation of the Pipeline Safety Act 

would have made a difference in Santa Barbara or any other individual oil spill or natural gas pipeline explosions. Nonetheless, we 

owe it to the American people to ensure that all reasonable steps 

are taken to ensure the safety of the Nation’s pipelines. The Pipeline Safety Act includes a number of such steps that have yet to 

be put into action. 

The increase in domestic oil and natural gas production is clearly 

good news, but it does present significant infrastructure challenges. 

Whether it is oil, refined products, or natural gas, there is inherent 

risk in moving high volumes of product through aging and sometimes inadequate infrastructure. Part of the answer lies in constructing new pipelines and replacing old ones, but perhaps even 

more important is applying new technology to ensure the safety of 

the existing system. 

Many experts believe that pipelines are the safest means of 

transporting natural gas and liquid hydrocarbons, but the Santa 

Barbara spill and other recent incidents underscore the fact that 

there is considerable room for improvement. It is important to understand why the timely implementation of the Pipeline Safety Act 

has proven so difficult, and particularly since more money has been 

given to PHMSA, and we would like to know how PHMSA can expedite this matter. 

And as we begin to look ahead to reauthorization of this same 

statute, we are also interested in learning about PHMSA’s priorities and if additional legislative steps should be taken. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Whitfield follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. ED WHITFIELD

Pipeline safety oversight is an important and ongoing priority with this subcommittee. This morning we will conduct our first oversight hearing on the Pipeline 

Safety, Regulatory Certainty, and Job Creation Act of 2011 and its implementation 

by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). I welcome the interim Executive Director of PHMSA as well as a second panel that includes representatives of the oil and natural gas industry, local government and 

other perspectives. 

It has been more than three years since the Pipeline Safety Act was enacted, and 

PHMSA’s implementation has not been satisfactory. Many of the mandates—at 

least 17 out of 42 included in the Pipeline Safety Act, have not been completed, including several described as key mandates with potentially large impacts on pipeline operations nationwide. 

The potential consequences of these delays are serious. In May, a significant oil 

spill occurred in Santa Barbara, California, and just days ago the same company 

reported another incident in Illinois. We have written letters both to PHMSA and 

this company seeking more information. 

It cannot be said for certain that full implementation of the Pipeline Safety Act 

would have made a difference in Santa Barbara or any other individual oil spill or 

natural gas pipeline explosion. Nonetheless, we owe it to the American people to ensure that all reasonable steps are taken to ensure the safety of the nation’s pipeVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:39 Feb 29, 2016 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 114\114-67 CHRIS
3 

lines. The Pipeline Safety Act includes a number of such steps that have yet to be 

put into action. 

The increase in domestic oil and gas production is clearly good news, but it does 

present significant infrastructure challenges. Whether it is oil, refined products, or 

natural gas, there is inherent risk in moving high volumes of product through aging 

and sometimes inadequate infrastructure. Part of the answer lies in constructing 

new pipelines and replacing old ones, but perhaps even more important is applying 

new technology to ensure the safety of the existing system. 

Many experts believe that pipelines are the safest means of transporting natural 

gas and liquid hydrocarbons, but the Santa Barbara spill and other recent incidents 

underscore the fact that there is considerable room for improvement. It is important 

to understand why the timely implementation of the Pipeline Safety Act has proven 

so difficult and how PHMSA can expedite matters. And as we begin to look ahead 

to reauthorization of this statute, I am also interested in learning about PHMSA’s 

priorities and if additional legislative steps should be taken. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. We have two panels of witnesses this morning, 

and I will be introducing them right before they give their opening 

statement. 

At this time, I would like to recognize the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Rush, for 5 minutes. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BOBBY L. RUSH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS 

Mr. RUSH. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this important and timely hearing today on the issue of pipeline safety 

oversight. 

Mr. Chairman, in the past, the issue of pipeline safety has been 

one that we have worked on in a bipartisan matter, and it is my 

hope and my expectation that we will continue to work on this important matter in the same tradition as we address this very, very 

important issue in this Congress. 

Mr. Chairman, unfortunately, the issue of pipeline safety too 

often takes a backseat to other pressing matters until there is an 

accident or there is a tragedy that focuses the public’s attention 

back on this issue. Of course, today’s hearings take place against 

a backdrop of the major Santa Barbara pipeline breach that spilled 

100,000 gallons of crude oil in May, polluting the Pacific Ocean, 

damaging Southern California beaches, and killing hundreds of 

thousands of wildlife. 

Additionally, Mr. Chairman, just over the weekend there was another smaller, but no less troubling spill, in my home State of Illinois from a station operated by the Plains All American, the very 

same company that owned the California pipeline that ruptured 

just 2 months ago. Two ruptures in 2 months, Mr. Chairman. 

So, Mr. Chairman, while this subcommittee continues to debate 

issues such as fast-tracking the pipeline permitting process, I think 

that it is imperative that we also examine the safety mechanisms 

we currently have in place to ensure that they are working effectively. And whether there are deficiencies in areas of resources or 

leadership, I believe there is much more work to be done in order 

for Americans to feel a greater sense of confidence in the agencies 

that are responsible for pipeline safety oversight. 

Once again, Mr. Chairman, I applaud you for holding this timely 

hearing today, and I look forward to hearing from all of our expert 

witnesses. 

4 

And with that, I yield back. I yield to Mrs. Capps for what time 

I have left. 

Mrs. CAPPS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Ranking 

Member, Mr. Rush, for holding this hearing and giving me the opportunity to provide an opening statement. 

I want to thank Chairman Upton and Ranking Member Pallone 

for a strong leadership within our committee on these issues, and 

for working with me to incorporate oversight of the recent oil spill 

in my district into this hearing. And I want to welcome my constituent, Dianne Black, from the County of Santa Barbara, who 

will be testifying on the second panel today. 

And as was already mentioned, nearly 2 months ago, over 

100,000 gallons of crude oil spilled from the ruptured Plains All 

American pipeline into the coastline of my district. The oil gushed 

from the ruptured pipeline, flowed down a hill, through a culvert, 

onto the beach and into the ocean along the pristine Gaviota Coast. 

From there, tens of thousands of gallons of oil spread for miles 

down the coast, closing popular beaches, valuable fisheries, devastating wildlife, and bringing back horrible memories of the Platform A disaster more than 45 years ago. 

Since that devastating oil spill in 1969, the Santa Barbara community has dedicated itself to learning from that tragedy and 

working to ensure that it does not happen again. Sadly, even in a 

community as determined as ours, May 19 reminded us that spills 

are inevitable as long as we continue to depend on oil for so much 

of our energy needs. 

I know the Plains spill in my district certainly is not the first 

pipeline failure, nor will it be the last. Time and time again, we 

have seen oil and gas pipelines fail, causing irreparable harm to 

lives, property, and the environment. Just last Friday, as was mentioned as well, we saw yet another oil spill in Illinois from a Plains 

pipeline; the very same company responsible for the spill in my district. These spills remind us that we have a responsibility to do everything we can to prevent spills from happening, but also to be 

prepared to minimize the damage when they do occur. That is why 

today’s hearing and our work to reauthorize federal pipeline safety 

programs are so important. As a result of the Plains spill in my 

district we have already gained valuable insights and identified 

weaknesses that must be addressed. 

I want to thank Chairman Upton and Ranking Member Pallone 

for working with me to fully investigate this spill, ensure this Administration is following through on its overdue pipeline safety reforms. 

Over the years, regardless of who is in the White House, federal 

pipeline regulations have been weak and ineffective. There is a reason that the company that built the pipeline that ruptured in my 

district sued in 1998 to have it be regulated by the Federal Government, rather than the County of Santa Barbara. They knew federal 

regulators would ask fewer questions, impose fewer restrictions. 

This cannot be allowed to continue. 

I recognize progress has been made in recent years. We still have 

a long way to go. While PHMSA has certainly dragged its feet in 

implementing key reforms, Congress has also failed to provide the 

agency with the resources it needs to meet the growing demand. 

5 

I often hear many of my colleagues tout efforts to support the rapid 

growth in domestic oil and gas development and pipeline construction in recent years. While I don’t share necessarily their enthusiasm for this development, I hope we can all agree that we must 

also support efforts to ensure federal regulators have the resources 

they need to keep pace with this growth. We simply can’t have one 

without the other. 

Mr. Chairman, these are just a few of many issues I hope this 

committee can examine closely as we work to reauthorize pipeline 

safety programs. These issues have traditionally been very strongly 

bipartisan. I hope that continues throughout this process. 

And I apologize for going way over Mr. Rush’s time, and I yield 

back. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. The gentlelady yields. 

At this time, recognize the gentleman of the full committee, Mr. 

Upton, for 5 minutes. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRED UPTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN 

Mr. UPTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

So today, this subcommittee returns to the very important issue 

of pipeline safety, and I welcome the Interim Executive Director 

Stacy Cummings of PHMSA to this hearing, and I look forward to 

the prompt confirmation of a permanent administrator, as much 

work needs to be done in the months ahead. 

This committee has a long bipartisan history on pipeline safety 

issues, including passage of the Pipeline Safety, Regulatory Certainty, and Job Creation Act of 2011, Upton-Dingell. That law held 

particular significance to me, as it came in the aftermath of a serious oil spill into a tributary of the Kalamazoo River just outside 

of my district in Michigan. Following the spill, I worked closely 

with my friend, John Dingell, on a bipartisan basis, as we also 

worked closely with our friends on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to get the Pipeline Safety Act on the books, 

signed by President Obama. The law contains numerous provisions 

designed to reduce the likelihood of similar pipeline spills, and 

minimize the impact of those when they do occur. However, the 

Pipeline Safety Act will not achieve its primary objectives until it 

is fully implemented, and I am most disappointed that more than 

1⁄3 of its requirements remain incomplete long after congressionally 

mandated deadlines have passed. This includes several of the law’s 

most important mandates, such as automatic and remote-controlled 

shutoff valves, leak detection, accident and incident notification, excess flow valves, and maximum allowable operating pressure. Some 

of these provisions, I am convinced, would have made a difference 

in the recent oil spill in Santa Barbara had they been implemented 

by PHMSA in a timely manner. 

In the last couple of days, PHMSA has announced proposals for 

two of these overdue mandates, and while these late steps are certainly in the right direction, there is no question something needs 

to change with the way PHMSA is implementing the Pipeline Safety Act. I intend to ask questions to find out what more Congress 

can do to speed up the implementation of those requirements. 

6 

The urgency for pipeline safety is greater than ever. With record 

levels of natural gas and liquid hydrocarbons being produced in 

this country and throughout North America, the volumes traversing pipelines are setting records. And although pipelines are 

among the safest means of transport, the Santa Barbara spill is a 

harsh reminder that rigorous risk-based enforcement needs to be a 

priority. 

This committee takes pipeline safety very seriously. That is why 

we insist that new pipelines be built with state-of-the-art safety 

features. It is also why we passed the Pipeline Safety Act to improve the safety of the 2 1⁄2 million miles of existing pipelines 

throughout the country. This includes many old and potentially 

vulnerable pipelines, such as one that carries oil beneath the 

Upper Peninsula and the Lower Peninsula through the Straits of 

Mackinac in Michigan. I think we can all agree that it is much, 

much better to be in a position to prevent incidents before they 

happen rather than to respond after they occur. 

In the last hour, the State of Michigan released its own report 

on pipeline safety, including specific recommendation on the Straits 

Pipelines, as well as other steps that can be taken to improve safety, including a better relationship between the state and PHMSA. 

I look forward to studying the report and commend the state for 

its commitment to pipeline safety. 

As we look ahead to continued implementation of the Pipeline 

Safety and to the law’s reauthorization, we will insist on greatly 

improved performance from PHMSA, and this hearing is certainly 

an important step towards getting us to where we need to be. 

And I will yield the minute if any of my side wants a minute. 

If not, I will yield back the balance of my time. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Upton follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. FRED UPTON

Today, this subcommittee returns to the very important issue of pipeline safety. 

I welcome the Interim Executive Director Stacy Cummings of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) to this hearing, and I look forward to the prompt confirmation of a permanent Administrator, as much work 

needs to be done in the months ahead. 

This committee has a long, bipartisan history on pipeline safety issues, including 

passage of the Pipeline Safety, Regulatory Certainty, and Job Creation Act of 2011. 

That law held particular significance to me, as it came in the aftermath of a serious 

oil spill into a tributary of the Kalamazoo River just outside my district in Michigan. 

Following the spill, I worked closely with my friend John Dingell on a bipartisan 

basis—we also worked closely with our friends on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to get the Pipeline Safety Act on the books. The law contains 

numerous provisions designed to reduce the likelihood of similar pipeline spills and 

minimize the impact of those that do occur. 

However, the Pipeline Safety Act will not achieve its primary objectives until it 

is fully implemented, and I am disappointed that more than one-third of its requirements remain incomplete long after congressionally mandated deadlines have 

passed. This includes several of the law’s most important mandates, such as automatic and remote-controlled shutoff valves, leak detection, accident and incident notification, excess flow valves, and maximum allowable operating pressure. Some of 

these provisions probably would have made a difference in the recent oil spill in 

Santa Barbara had they been implemented by PHMSA in a timely manner. 

In the last few days, PHMSA has announced proposals for two of these overdue 

mandates. While these late steps are in the right direction, there is no question 

something needs to change with the way PHMSA is implementing the Pipeline Safety Act. I intend to ask some tough questions to find out what more Congress can 

do to speed up the implementation of these requirements. 

7 

The urgency for pipeline safety is greater than ever. With record levels of natural 

gas and liquid hydrocarbons being produced in this country and throughout North 

America, the volumes traversing pipelines are setting records. And although pipelines are among the safest means of transport, the Santa Barbara spill is a harsh 

reminder that rigorous risk-based enforcement needs to be a priority 

This committee takes pipeline safety very seriously. That is why we insist that 

new pipelines be built with state-of-the-art safety features. It is also why we passed 

the Pipeline Safety Act to improve the safety of the 2.6 million miles of existing 

pipelines throughout the country. This includes many old and potentially vulnerable 

pipelines, such as one that carries oil beneath the Straits of Mackinac in northern 

Michigan. I think we can all agree that it is much, much better to be in a position 

to prevent incidents before they happen rather than to respond after they occur. 

Just a few minutes ago the state of Michigan released its own report on pipeline 

safety, including specific recommendations on the Straits Pipelines as well as other 

steps that can be taken to improve safety including a better relationship between 

the state and PHMSA. I look forward to reading the report and commend the state 

for its commitment to pipeline safety. 

As we look ahead to continued implementation of the Pipeline Safety Act and to 

the law’s reauthorization, we will insist on greatly improved performance from 

PHMSA, and this hearing is an important step towards getting us to where we need 

to be. Thank you. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. The gentleman yields back the balance of his 

time. 

At this time, recognize the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. 

Pallone, for an opening statement. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK PALLONE, JR., A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you and 

Mr. Rush holding this long-overdue oversight hearing on the 2011 

Pipeline Safety Act. 

The vast network of transition pipelines in this country are considered by most Americans as out of sight and out of mind, but 

when something goes wrong, the presence of these facilities can 

make themselves known in the most devastating and sometimes 

deadly ways. Unfortunately, there are one too many examples of 

this since 2010, first in San Bruno, California, then in Marshall, 

Michigan, and most recently in Santa Barbara. There the rupture 

of a Plains All American pipeline spilled over 100,000 gallons of 

crude oil onto the coastline. And I am no stranger to the damage 

that can be caused by pipeline failures. Twenty-one years ago, a 

pipeline exploded in my district in Edison, New Jersey, destroying 

around 300 homes, melting cars, and lighting up the sky from New 

York to Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, that loud and powerful explosion was met with a staggering level of inaction by the Department 

of Transportation’s Office of Pipeline Safety, and its parent organization, the Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration, or PHMSA. 

Two decades and four reauthorizations later, PHMSA has made 

little progress. The shortfalls of the agency have drawn the attention of industry and safety advocates alike, as well as Democrats 

and Republicans. I am deeply concerned about PHMSA’s inability 

to carry out its mission, numerous safety recommendations, or congressional mandates. Almost 5 years after the last reauthorization, 

it is especially troubling how many mandates have yet to be implemented by the agency. Many of the outstanding requirements are 

8 

critically important to safety, such as those dealing with operating 

pressure, leak detection, and automatic or remote-controlled shutoff valves. The lack of inaction on automatic and remote-controlled 

shut-off valves is particularly galling considering the NTSB recommended expanded use of these damage prevention technologies 

20 years ago. I remember that during the whole New Durham explosion, again, in my district in Edison. 

Even more troubling is the discovery that OMB is also to blame. 

Last night, the committee inadvertently received a version of 

PHMSA’s testimony that had been marked up by OMB, and OMB’s 

comments clearly showed concern over being called-out over this 

outrageous delay, asking whether PHMSA has a ‘‘planned response 

to a question about why this rule has been under EO 12866 review 

so long. If so, could you provide a summary of that response?’’ 

Perhaps, Mr. Chairman, we need to get OMB up here to explain 

to the American people and this committee as to why they have 

held up these proposed rules for so long. Progress must finally be 

made to help ensure the safety of our pipeline system, and I hope 

that this hearing leads to that. 

I am about to yield, Mr. Chairman, but I just want to say, I was 

first elected to Congress not long before that explosion in Edison, 

and we were very fortunate that—I think one person had a heart 

attack and lost their life because of the explosion, but there wasn’t 

anybody who directly was impacted, although, obviously, that person was who had the heart attack. And for several years after that, 

we made a number of recommendations including the remote shutoff valves, but I really feel like there is a lot of hoopla when these 

explosions or tragedies occur, but then not much happens afterwards in terms of preventing them again. So hopefully, we will get 

something out of this hearing today and the committee’s action. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. The gentleman yields back. 

And that concludes the opening statements. 

So on our first panel, we have one person, and that is Ms. Stacy 

Cummings, who is the Interim Executive Director for the Pipeline 

and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. 

So, Ms. Cummings, if you would come forward, and you will be 

recognized for 5 minutes for your opening statement, and at the 

end of that time, we will give members an opportunity to ask you 

some questions. So thank you very much for being with us, and be 

sure to get your microphone up close and turn it on. And you are 

recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF STACY CUMMINGS, INTERIM EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PIPELINE AND HAZARDOUS MATERIALS SAFETY 

ADMINISTRATION 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Thank you for that introduction. 

Chairman Upton, Ranking Member Pallone, Chairman Whitfield, 

Ranking Member Rush, members of the subcommittee, thank you 

for inviting me to testify today on the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s progress in implementing the Pipeline Safety Act of 2011, and thank you for providing PHMSA with 

the tools we need to execute our pipeline safety mission. 

9 

My name is Stacy Cummings. I am the Interim Executive Director of PHMSA. In May, I traveled to the site of the Plains Pipeline 

oil spill in Santa Barbara, witnessing for myself its effect on the 

environment and nearby communities. The spill disrupted businesses, threatened wildlife, and impacted local residents and tourism. This spill was unacceptable, and Americans deserve to be confident that the pipelines in their communities are operating safely. 

What I saw in Santa Barbara as well was PHMSA’s rapid and 

comprehensive response to the spill. Immediately following notification, PHMSA personnel were on the scene, where we remain actively involved now. Our inspectors continue to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the cause of this failure, and we continue to support the unified command’s spill response efforts, lead 

by the Coast Guard and EPA. PHMSA quickly issued a corrective 

action order to Plains Pipeline, and the affected pipeline remains 

shut down under our authority. We will make sure that the operator identifies the root cause of the failure, and mitigates any additional risks before we allow them to restart that pipeline. 

I was very impressed by our PHMSA team in the western region, 

as well as throughout the country. It is truly an honor to lead a 

workforce so clearly dedicated to its safety mission. Here in Washington, PHMSA continues to take action to successfully meet the 

requirements of each mandate in the Pipeline Safety Act. I speak 

for the entire agency when I say that we share your concern and 

sense of urgency. We are committed to satisfying every mandate. 

The rulemaking process is methodical, inclusive, and transparent. It enables PHMSA to fully consider stakeholder input. In 

the past month, PHMSA has welcomed new executive leadership, 

and with the support of the Office of Management and Budget, we 

have issued two proposed rules and one final rule. Those rules address three mandates from the Pipeline Safety Act, and five NTSB 

recommendations. We continue to work to advance significant 

rulemakings on natural gas and hazardous liquid pipelines. These 

proposed rules are anticipated to be published by the end of this 

year. But rulemaking is not the only tool that PHMSA uses to improve pipeline safety. As we saw in Santa Barbara, pipeline failures don’t wait on the rulemaking process, and neither will 

PHMSA. We are first and foremost a safety agency. We execute our 

mission on several fronts with one goal in mind; to drive down the 

pipeline failure rate to zero. In addition to developing safety regulations, we focus on reducing risk by reaching out to the regulated 

community to ensure that they both understand and comply with 

federal safety regulations. We conduct integrated inspections, we 

hold operators accountable through enforcement, we provide grants 

to our local and state pipeline safety partners, and we also fund research to develop innovative safety solutions. For these reasons, 

pipeline failures are low probability events, even as risk factors increase. Unfortunately, when pipeline failures do occur, they can be 

fatal and costly. At PHMSA, we think that one pipeline failure is 

one too many. 

PHMSA was founded just 10 years ago, and yet so much has 

changed since then. Our Nation’s energy supply and transportation 

pipeline network continue to grow exponentially. These changes are 

tremendous opportunities for our Nation, and provide an opporVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:39 Feb 29, 2016 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 114\114-67 CHRIS
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tunity for PHMSA to evolve with the industry we regulate. Whether it is through smarter data or funding research for better detection technology, PHMSA will weigh and act on a range of options 

for implementing innovative pipeline safety solutions. PHMSA is 

committed to working with this committee to ensure that we are 

well positioned to adapt to a modern and evolving infrastructure. 

Americans deserve to be confident that PHMSA is protecting people and the environment. We take this charge very seriously. 

Again, thank you for your support. I look forward to answering 

your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Cummings follows:] 

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Mr. WHITFIELD. Ms. Cummings, thank you very much. And I am 

going to defer my questions, but I am going to recognize at this 

time, Mr. Olson, of Texas, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. OLSON. I thank the chair. And welcome, Director Cummings. 

It is always great to have someone who served our Navy, as the 

daughter of a career naval officer. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Thank you. 

Mr. OLSON. My home State of Texas is no stranger to pipelines. 

According to EIA, we have nearly 60,000 miles of gas pipelines. Oil 

lines cover the state as well. They are vital to our economy, to the 

Nation’s economy, as they carry the products that keep America 

moving. 

It is not just oil and gas in pipelines. Water pipelines can blow 

out as well. We saw that last year when Sunset Boulevard became 

Sunset River. A 93-year-old pipeline blew out, sending 20 billion 

gallons of water all over the campus of UCLA. We know that pipelines are the safest way to move oil and gas, but just like airplanes, 

when the worst happens, it can be tragic. People can be killed. 

Eight people lost their lives in San Bruno. Eight people in their 

homes. And that is why we should always keep moving forward 

with pipeline safety. 

It seems clear that PHMSA was never going to make our deadlines that we imposed with the most recent Pipeline Safety bill. 

And when PHMSA has a long list of new rules to write, do you try 

to triage them and focus on the ones that are more important to 

keeping people safe? How are you working through that list? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Thank you for that question, Congressman. Yes, 

we had 42 mandates in the 2011 Pipeline Safety Act, of which we 

have completed 26. We are working on every single one of those 42 

mandates, and in the case of the mandates that are going to be addressed through rulemakings, we haven’t been waiting on the rulemaking process to get information out to our stakeholders, to the 

industry, and to the public. We have sanctioned studies, and we 

have issued reports to Congress. We have held public meetings and 

workshops. We have issued advance notices of proposed rulemaking 

to help us gather stakeholder data, and in some cases we have proposed rules that we have issued, like the two that we were able to 

issue in the last month. Those are all very important ways that we 

get information out to the stakeholders and to industry as we continue to work to fulfill the remainder of the 42 mandates, again, 

many of them with formal rules that we are in process working on. 

Mr. OLSON. So 42; 26 down, 16 to go—— 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Right. 

Mr. OLSON [continuing]. If my math is right. Keep working hard 

on that. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. We will. 

Mr. OLSON. My second question, I hope to ask this to the second 

panel as well—if I call the city hall in the village of Pleak back 

home in Texas, and ask Mayor Bittner or Fire Chief Gania has 

PHMSA reached out to you about pipeline safety, what do you 

think they will say? Put it another way, how much have you done 

outreach to the first responders and leaders at local communities? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. I hope that what he will say is, yes, absolutely, 

PHMSA has reached out. We reach out to our stakeholders in 

28 

many ways. I mentioned a couple of them being public meetings 

and workshops. We partner with the first responder community to 

make sure that they have access to training. We also have several 

grants. About 1⁄3 of our budget goes to grants. And some of those 

grants are technical assistance grants where the mayor or the first 

responder community can actually apply for a grant with PHMSA 

to get technical assistance to provide training, to do outreach to the 

public, to invest in equipment that is going to help them respond 

to a pipeline accident if it were to occur. So there are many opportunities for stakeholders such as your mayor and the first responder community to interact with PHMSA, and for us to help 

them be prepared. 

Mr. OLSON. I will check with them and confirm those. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Thank you. 

Mr. OLSON. Great, thanks for that answer. Final question, you 

have always kept the focus on risk-based standards over the years, 

and that is appropriate, but how does this risk-based standards 

agenda move forward, evolve with these new rulemakings? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. One of the most important changes to the pipeline safety program over the last 10 to 15 years has been our implementation of integrity management. Integrity management is a 

risk-based approach where we require the operator to identify, assess, and mitigate risks associated with their specific pipeline. The 

operator is in the best position to understand the uniqueness of the 

location, the condition of their pipeline, as well as what is moving 

through their pipeline. And so our program for integrity management is our risk-based approach, and we are going to continue to 

improve it, enhance it, and expand it through the rulemakings that 

you are going to be seen proposed over the next year. 

Mr. OLSON. Thank you. 

I am out of time. Yield back. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. At this time, recognize the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Rush, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. RUSH. Ms. Cummings, I really want to thank you so much 

for being here today with us, and I know your job is not an easy 

one and you are the Interim Executive Director, and I enjoyed our 

recent discussions. 

And I would like to—before I begin, if you can give me an update 

on the pipeline meeting that happened on Friday near Highland, 

Illinois. Is the spill contained? And I have heard that the oil has 

reached a tributary of Silver Lake concerning the water supply for 

the citizens of Highland, and I would like to know if the water supply is safe, has it been affected, and give me an update if you will 

on the clean-up efforts that PHMSA is conducting there or overseeing there near Highland, Illinois. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Happy to, and thank you for the question. 

Mr. RUSH. Yes. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. On Friday in Pocahontas, Illinois, a pipeline fitting at a pump station blew out, discharging about 100 barrels of 

crude onto the ground. The spill did migrate down a ditch into a 

creek, as you mentioned, and it did threaten the water source. It 

was heading in the direction of a reservoir that held a water source 

for Highland, Illinois. We were notified of the spill through the National Response Center, which is the appropriate way to be notiVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:39 Feb 29, 2016 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00034 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 114\114-67 CHRIS
29 

fied. We immediately sent a PHMSA investigator to be on the 

scene, and that investigator was on the scene by 4:00 p.m. that 

very day. An incident command center was set up. The State of Illinois had the lead on that. And what they did was they managed 

the response, they immediately went in to stop the flow of oil, and 

they were able to stop the flow of oil before it got to the point 

where it threatened the water source. So as was confirmed to me 

yesterday through an update from our team, the water source 

was—oil did not get into the water source—into that reservoir. 

The clean-up effort did work. They used booms, and then for the 

past several days, they have been using different methods to recover the oil. And they are in the process of continuing to do that. 

I can get you a very, very specific update in writing for the 

record if you would like, but I would like to point out that this was 

Plains Pipeline, which is the same operator from the Santa Barbara spill. 

Today, we are issuing a corrective action order to Plains specifically related to this spill in Illinois, and I sent a letter yesterday 

to the CEO of Plains Pipeline, and he and his team are going to 

be here in D.C. at PHMSA, and we are going to talk to them on 

Friday about their safety record, safety culture, and what they are 

doing to address these two issues, but also the safety of their entire 

system. 

Mr. RUSH. In your opinion, do most mayors, county executives, 

local leaders even know what pipelines are in their jurisdiction and 

what those pipelines are carrying, and if they wanted to obtain this 

information, can they get it from PHMSA? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes. We have an online tool called the National 

Pipeline Mapping System, NPMS. That tool in its entirety is limited in access, but what we do is we have individual access for people based on the information that they need to know. So a local executive, a local emergency responder, or a state-level emergency responder or executive would have the ability to apply for a password—— 

Mr. RUSH. Yes. 

Ms. CUMMINGS [continuing]. And they would have role-based access to the information that they need to identify what pipelines 

are in their area. And if anybody needs any help accessing that or 

getting access, we would be happy to provide that assistance. 

Mr. RUSH. Most citizens of my state would really be surprised to 

know the number of pipelines, an enormous amount of pipelines 

that are located in the State of Illinois. Do you have any idea about 

the percentage of the Nation’s pipelines that go through the State 

of Illinois? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. I think you asked the percentage of the 2.6 million? 

Mr. RUSH. Yes. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. No, I can’t tell you the exact percentage. I can 

absolutely get you that for the record, but I agree with you, there 

are many pipelines in the State of Illinois that we regulate as well 

as that are regulated by the state. 

Mr. RUSH. I was told, Mr. Chairman, that in one part of my district, Will County, 1⁄8 of the state’s entire pipelines go through— 

and this is a small quadrant of my district in the State of Illinois. 

30 

I want to thank you again, Ms. Cummings. And I yield back, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. At this time, recognize the chairman of the full 

committee, Mr. Upton, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. UPTON. Again, appreciate the hearing. And as I indicated in 

my statement, there are a number of us that are not happy with 

the failure to really implement a number of the issues that were 

signed into law a number of years ago. Literally about 1⁄3 as we calculate, 1⁄3 of some of those regulations. 

So I guess I have a question. As we look to reauthorizing this 

bill, which, as you know, expires the end of September, should we 

be providing more direction to PHMSA to prioritize the outstanding 

mandates, or should we allow PHMSA to finalize the regs required 

by the 2011 law before determining what changes need to be made? 

What is your suggested course? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. We do have significant progress that we have 

made on the mandates, over and above the ones that we have completed, and we do appreciate your patience in completing those 

mandates. Every single one of them is critical and important for 

pipeline safety. Each one of those mandates are as important to 

PHMSA as they are to you, and we have a plan moving forward 

to complete them. 

We do think that during the reauthorization process, we would 

like to sit down with the committee staff, we would like to sit down 

with you, talk about specific ways that we can use reauthorization 

to help us expand pipeline safety, improve pipeline safety, but we 

do recognize that we have a lot of work to do and we are very, very 

focused on it, and we have a plan to complete every one of these 

mandates. 

Mr. UPTON. So one of the easiest ones, in my book, to implement 

was the change that we did that a company had to report formally, 

on a timely basis—— 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes. 

Mr. UPTON [continuing]. And we changed that to say it had to 

be within an hour. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes. 

Mr. UPTON. We look at the Santa Barbara spill a couple of weeks 

ago, and that spill, as I understand it from talking to Lois Capps, 

what went on for many, many hours. I mean how is it not easy to 

say it has to be done within 1 hour, and it doesn’t happen, here 

we are 4 years later. That was one of the big issues that we had 

in the Kalamazoo River spill in Calhoun County back in 2010. They 

did know that it was going on but they didn’t report it until even 

perhaps a couple of days later. One billion dollars in clean-up. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. PHMSA agrees that timely notification is absolutely critical because the sooner we begin response in the rare and 

unfortunate circumstance of a pipeline rupture. Earlier this month, 

we issued a proposed rule that will require operators to notify as 

soon as practicable, but not more than 1 hour after they have detected a release, to the National Response Center. So we are proud 

to have gotten that proposed rule issued. It was issued earlier this 

month. 

Mr. UPTON. But why did it take so long? That was the intent, 

that was what we discussed. It was in black and white—— 

31 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes. 

Mr. UPTON [continuing]. And 4 years—— 

Ms. CUMMINGS. I—— 

Mr. UPTON [continuing]. Is OMB that slow? Do I need to go back 

to Sylvia Burwell, when she was there, to—— 

Ms. CUMMINGS. I understand—and I sense your frustration that 

it has taken us this long to have the proposed rule out, but I would 

like to point out that we have issued multiple safety advisories, 

and we have shared with the industry how critical it is for timely 

notification. 

As we execute the investigation into the incident at Santa Barbara, and also in Illinois, we are absolutely going to be looking at 

timelines and notification as part of our corrective action order, and 

we do expect operators to be notifying the NRC as soon as possible 

so that they can begin that clean-up. 

Mr. UPTON. OK, let me ask one last question in my remaining 

minute. In the current Integrity Management Program for inspecting for oil and gas pipelines, is there a priority for increased inspections or shut-off valves on pipelines that are over 30 years old? So 

not new ones—— 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes. 

Mr. UPTON [continuing]. But the ones that were made more than 

30 years ago, or more than a mile under water. So I look at the 

difference between—in the Straits of Mackinac, it is more than a 

mile. I look at the Chesapeake Bay, I am not sure if there are pipelines there or not. I look at pipelines that are going out in the 

ocean. Are there any regulations that are pending or that you are 

reviewing that would look at existing pipelines of somewhat older 

nature—— 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes. 

Mr. UPTON [continuing]. In certainly environmentally sensitive 

areas, and if not, should we be looking at those here as we look 

to reauthorize the bill? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. I am going to ask if I can respond to you on the 

record on that specific question on whether or not that is in the 

regs now or the regs that we are planning. 

Mr. UPTON. Do you think that is a good idea that we do that? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. I think that a risk-based approach looks at probability and consequence, and that we should be looking at everything that impacts the probability of a pipeline failure as well as 

the consequence. So proximity to water as well as age impact both 

likelihood and consequence. Those sound like intriguing ideas, but 

I would definitely like to talk to the technical experts before providing you with a specific—— 

Mr. UPTON. I look forward to your response. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Thank you so much. 

Mr. UPTON. Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. At this time, the chair recognizes the gentleman 

from California, Mr. McNerney, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Ms. 

Cummings, for testifying this morning. 

I would like to know a little bit about how you prioritize your inspections. Is there a way for you to determine what pipelines are 

most at risk? Could you explain that a little please? 

32 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes, absolutely. Thank you. We prioritize our inspections using a risk model driven by data, and so we have about 

26 different elements that look at the condition of the pipe, the age 

of the pipe, what is being moved in the pipe, as well as past performance, and what information we have learned through the inspections that we have already provided. And we use that information and put it into an algorithm, and that algorithm gives us basically advice on which companies, which operators, we should be inspecting. We then have our regional directors who are experts and 

who really know the system, use that information as input to create their annual plan to make sure that we are visiting those pipeline operators that are at higher risk more frequently—— 

Mr. MCNERNEY. OK. 

Ms. CUMMINGS [continuing]. And to make sure that we are—— 

Mr. MCNERNEY. So how much transparency does that algorithm 

have? Is that something that is publicly available? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. I am not sure that it is publicly available, but 

I would be happy to schedule a briefing with you or your staff to 

go over that algorithm and how we use it. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. OK, that might be a good idea. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Sure. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Is PHMSA moving forward with regulations on 

automatic shut-down valves and remote-control valves? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. We are. In 2012, we provided a report to this 

committee. It helped us to inform our thinking on automatic shutoff valves, remote-controlled shut-off valves, and other safety technology, to the technical feasibility of it, the operational feasibility, 

as well as economic. So we are working on several rules right now. 

One of them looking at specifically leak detection in valves. The 

others looking at how we can improve integrity management, 

which does include the operator evaluating the usefulness and the 

safety benefit of valves. So we are working on that, and we hope 

to get those proposed rules issued—— 

Mr. MCNERNEY. OK, thank you. 

Ms. CUMMINGS [continuing]. As soon as possible. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. How is PHMSA doing with regard to controlling 

fugitive gas emissions and safety of pipelines that are serving 

fracking production? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Can I get back to you on the record on that question? 

Mr. MCNERNEY. I suppose you can. In fact, yes, I would say—— 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Thank you. 

Mr. MCNERNEY [continuing]. You should. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Thank you. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Does PHMSA have the resources to complete 

rulemaking on a timely basis? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. We are so grateful that in 2015, Congress provided us with the resources we need to hire 109 new people for the 

pipeline program. While 80 percent of those positions are going to 

be resources in the field to support inspections and enforcement, 20 

percent of them are going to be at headquarters, and those positions are specifically going to help support our regulatory agenda, 

economic analysis, training, certification, and support of our state 

partners. 

33 

Mr. MCNERNEY. So, now, you said you hired 100-and-some people, are those mostly technical people, or are they management? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes. A great proportion of them are technical, 

yes. So in the field, the 80 percent of the 109; engineers, auditors, 

inspectors, and enforcement tech. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. What are the requirements for PHMSA issuing 

a corrective action order? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. The requirement for a corrective action order is 

imminent hazard, and that is part of our statutory authority. So 

the time when you will most likely see us issue a corrective action 

order is going to be after a pipeline failure, such as the one in 

Santa Barbara or the one in Illinois. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. But you can and have issued those before failures? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. We can if we have evidence of an imminent hazard, but more likely it is going to be issued after. And—— 

Mr. MCNERNEY. So you don’t have any historical examples of 

issuing one before an accident? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. I don’t have any examples for you right now. I 

will ask my technical team and get back to you on the record if we 

have an example of that. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Well, OK. In the remaining 40 seconds, please 

explain a little bit about the rulemaking process. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes, sure. Before we are ready to issue a rule, 

and we are putting together the information, we are generally 

going to do public workshops, we are going to do studies, and sometimes we are going to issue an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking, which is more of a wide open request to stakeholders to 

provide us information to inform the rulemaking process. We are 

going to take all that information, we are going to put it together 

into a rule that has the safety requirements, safety benefits, and 

also the economic benefits. So what is the cost versus the safety 

benefit of the regulation? We issue that proposed regulation to the 

Federal Register. Again, we get stakeholder input. We put that 

stakeholder input together, and we have two advisory committees 

that we consult with at—when we are moving towards the final 

rule stage. We use them to advise us on the benefit of the rule, the 

safety requirements that we have put together, as well as the operational ability to implement, and then the economics, the cost of it. 

Once we issue a final—— 

Mr. MCNERNEY. I am going to have to yield back, Mr.—— 

Ms. CUMMINGS. OK. Thank you. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. I have run out of time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. She was giving great detail. 

At this time, I recognize the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. 

Shimkus, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And welcome, Ms. 

Cummings. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Thank you. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The spill in Illinois is located in my district. I 

talked with the city manager actually, yesterday morning. I think 

one of the interesting things was Keystone goes through that area 

also, and Keystone had provided them with a response trailer in 

34 

which they were able to deploy with their firefighters to ensure the 

protection of the water supply, which is called Silver Lake. And so 

I would concur with what you concluded, that there is no threat to 

their drinking water. And their response was as per you would expect when you have pipelines. We do have a lot of pipelines. We 

have the Patoka Terminal. So these things happen, and they are 

regretful, but we—the issue is responding. I think those of us who 

were here when we passed the last piece of legislation were hoping 

that—we know we are not going to be perfect, but we want, obviously, to have a better process in place to be able to ensure that 

we can identify these before the accident occurs. Hence, all these 

lines of questions. 

The first issue that I would like—you have answered some of 

them in your testimony, but could any of the Pipeline Safety Act 

mandates have made a difference, do you know, in the recent pipeline breaks, whether that is in California or the one recently in Illinois? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Because those two investigations are still going 

on, I don’t think I can presuppose what the cause was, but we will 

absolutely be looking through our investigation at the condition of 

the pipe, we will be looking at their inline inspection results, we 

will be looking at what happened in the control room, how quick 

were they to respond, did they follow their emergency response 

plans, as well as the placement and how quick they closed valves 

and pumping stations. So I would be happy to, once the investigation is complete, do an analysis of the results compared to the 

rulemakings and the mandates that we currently have—— 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Yes, that would be helpful. I can’t speak for California, but I know Plains put up a Web site to give the public access, whoever knew about it, to go to the Web site to get a current 

update on their response, and I think that has been very helpful. 

I was going to ask about where—but you answered this already 

too, that you—there will be a correction action order probably conducted. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Can you talk through some of the criteria that 

may be involved in that and maybe some of the benchmarks, because now what we want to do is make sure there is some certainty—— 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes. 

Mr. SHIMKUS [continuing]. Obviously, from the local community 

that it is ready to go and up and running? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Absolutely. The corrective action order is being 

issued today by our regional director to Plains. And so I can tell 

you in general what is going to be in it. They were still working 

on it, the specifics, as I was coming over to this hearing. But we 

are going to be looking at what was the cause. We are going to be 

looking at—because it was a pipe fitting, to look and see where else 

in the network those pipe fittings are so that we can make sure 

that this event won’t happen somewhere else on the pipeline network. We are going to be looking at their emergency response notification, when did they notify, what was the timing, when did they 

know. And we will be looking for them to use third party analysis 

similar to what we have required from Plains in Santa Barbara, 

35 

and provide those results to us so that we can perform our investigation. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. And lastly, we understand that you are having difficulty collecting data from states and localities about drinking 

water supplies and other ecological information. How can we help, 

or what can we do to help get the states to provide the information 

you need to do based upon past legislation and your intent on analysis? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Right. Yes, through our National Pipeline Mapping System, in trying to complete the mandates, and also just create a good system that we can use but also that is transparent, we 

have had some issues getting access to the right data especially in 

a cost-effective manner. We would love help in figuring out the best 

way to get that data. We are looking at information collections 

right now, but I would love to take you up on your offer, and maybe 

through our reauthorization discussion or just individually, if we 

can come up with some ways to make that path cleaner, that would 

be great. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Well, and that is why we have these hearings too, 

to find out ways we can work together and be helpful. So I am sure 

the committee is taking notes, and we can follow up with that. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. The gentleman yields back. 

At this time, recognize the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. 

Pallone, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. PALLONE. Ms. Cummings, in the 2002 reauthorization, Congress added language to Section 60112 of the law to make it easier 

for the Secretary to take corrective action against a pipeline that 

poses a threat to life, property, or the environment, and because 

the department doesn’t issue licenses to pipeline operators, this authority is perhaps the closest tool the Secretary has to suspending 

or revoking a license. I know that PHMSA used this authority to 

address threats posed to Santa Barbara by two of the lines operated by Plains All American, but I am concerned that perhaps the 

hurdle for using this authority is still too high, and that the Secretary isn’t able to take advantage of it as often as may be needed 

to protect the public and our environment. 

So my question is, do you need more flexibility or different, more 

useable tools to quickly address the threat of unsafe facilities? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. The imminent hazard requirement is what we 

would use in order to issue a corrective action order in order to 

shut down a pipeline. We do have a lot of tools in our toolbox, but 

I think—I would very much like to have the opportunity to talk in 

more detail about that specifically, and whether or not there was 

a way for us to use that emergency in advance of an accident. That 

is something we would like to talk about in the future. But we are 

not afraid to use corrective actions when we need to—corrective action orders, and we have a lot of other tools in our toolbox that we 

continue to use for strong enforcement. 

Mr. PALLONE. All right. And Congress will need to reauthorize 

the Pipeline Safety Act soon, and yet, as a number of us noted in 

our opening statements, PHMSA has yet to complete some of the 

most critical rulemakings mandated by the 2011 Act, including 

work surrounding leak detection, a very important matter in light 

36 

of the recent incident in Santa Barbara. Not only does the Pipeline 

Safety Trust flag this inability to complete its rulemakings as a 

problem, but industry also views this as a matter that is hurting 

safety, as evidenced in Mr. Santa’s testimony. My understanding is 

that these rulemakings have been held up in review at OMB due 

to open cost benefit analysis questions. So if you could answer my 

question. What are these open benefit cost analysis questions referred to in the comment? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Well, we work with our interagency partners, 

OMB being one of those partners, to ensure that we are speaking 

with one voice on policy matters. We value the input of OMB. 

Whenever we go through the process of working a rule through 

OMB, it always ends up being a better product. Some of the things 

that they would ask us questions about through the rulemaking 

process are going to be what are the assumptions that we used in 

order to generate the cost versus the benefit. They are going to be 

looking at the data that we used to justify the benefit that we have 

calculated. And we always get good information from OMB, and we 

reply as quickly as we possibly can, as do they, we work together 

to come up with the best possible rule. It is very important to us 

that when we do issue a rule, we get it right. 

Mr. PALLONE. But how can these questions remain open for so 

long, and how have you tried to resolve them, and maybe most importantly, how can we help you? I mean perhaps it is not your 

agency’s fault, these rules have yet to see the light of day, but you 

need to tell us what is going on and how we can help you get the 

job done. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. I appreciate that offer for support from this committee. We believe that we have a very good relationship with 

OMB, and as I said, we believe we get very valuable information 

back through the process. In my experience, we have been working 

very closely with OMB and they have been very cooperative in 

helping us move our rules forward, but again, we want to make 

sure we get the rules right, and the very methodical, open, and 

transparent process enables us to do that with stakeholder input. 

Mr. PALLONE. Is there any way that we can help you though because, you know, they have remained open for so long, and I know 

you say you are trying to resolve them, but how are we going to 

resolve it and how can we help you? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. I think having oversight hearings like this are 

a great way to do that. It brings visibility to PHMSA as an agency 

and also to the mandates of the Pipeline Safety Act. And I think 

that we have a great plan moving forward, and that you are going 

to see some proposed rules out of us, as you have in the last month. 

I think you are going to see them for the rest of the year. 

Mr. PALLONE. OK, thank you. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. At this time, recognize the gentleman from 

Pennsylvania, Mr. Pitts, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. PITTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Madam Director, the notices of proposed rulemaking announced 

in the last 2 weeks on accident notification and excess flow valves 

show some incremental progress to address safety, however, there 

are many significant rules still pending. 

37 

My question is, when can we expect these rules to be published, 

and will PHMSA commit to sharing a timeline or schedule for completion? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes, we have several rules that we are actively 

involved in the rulemaking process. We have a Web site that the 

Department of Transportation keeps up-to-date, and that Web site 

will provide the schedule of where the rule is and when we anticipate proposing it or issuing it. In addition, we at PHMSA have a 

Web site that we keep up-to-date on every mandate, all of the 42 

mandates, as well as other activities in the Pipeline Safety Act. We 

keep that up-to-date as well. And so at any time, if you wanted information about our progress on the mandates, or where we are in 

the rulemaking process, that is very transparent and it is available 

on our Web site. But we would be happy to come and provide you 

with a detailed brief of each of our rules, what we are looking at 

for the rules, and the schedule. 

Mr. PITTS. Thank you. Last year, Congress increased PHMSA’s 

fiscal year 2015 budget by 23 percent, and PHMSA has committed 

to hiring over 100 new personnel to conduct inspections and handle 

enforcement cases. What progress has PHMSA made to hire and 

train new personnel, and, you know, what can Congress do to help 

expedite the process? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes, we are so grateful that in the 2015 fiscal 

year, we have enough funding to hire 122 new positions, with 109 

of them being in the pipeline program. I mentioned earlier that 80 

percent of those are going to be in the field. We are in the process 

of onboarding people that have accepted positions, we are at 46 

percent fill rate. We have a very robust strategy to bring the remainder of those positions onboard. We are doing things like holding veterans fairs, we are doing recruitment, we have looked at our 

requirements to make sure that we are reaching the breadth of the 

folks out there who would be interested in coming to work for 

PHMSA. We have even requested direct hire authority, which we 

haven’t received, but that would be very helpful in targeting those 

engineering skill sets that we are looking for at PHMSA. And as 

far as training, we have a very robust training program. We are 

going to train those new employees in a bit of a boot camp scenario 

so that they are being trained together, and so that they become 

valuable parts of our inspection team as soon as possible. 

Mr. PITTS. Thank you. Section 4 of the Pipeline Safety Act required PHMSA to issue regulations if appropriate requiring the use 

of automatic or remote-controlled shut-off valves in new or entirely 

replaced transmission pipelines. This regulation could improve the 

ability of pipeline operators to quickly stop the flow of crude oil or 

natural gas in the event of an accidental release. Operator delay 

in shutting down pipeline flow has been identified as the exacerbating factor in a number of recent pipeline failures, most probably 

in the September 2010 natural gas pipeline in San Bruno, California, when it took an hour and a half to manually close the valve. 

In 2010 and ’11, PHMSA issued notices of proposed rulemaking for 

both gas and liquid pipelines, and both announcements made clear 

that some changed the requirements for automatic or remote-controlled valves was being considered. PHMSA studied the issue, it 

38 

has reported to Congress, so why, years later, hasn’t PHMSA finalized their regulation? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. We have issued studies, reports to Congress, and 

advanced notice of proposed rulemaking. The rules that I spoke to 

you about, that we have a plan moving forward and we are working to propose, do address things like integrity management, increasing the breadth of our regulations, as well as automatic and 

remote-controlled shut-off valves, leak detection, and other safety 

technologies that are available in the market but we will propose 

in those rules very soon. 

Mr. PITTS. Is PHMSA reviewing the need to propose changes to 

existing exceptions from federal regulation for gathering lines, and 

if so, when will this review conclude? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. We are. We are looking at that as well as looking 

at how that might inform the rulemaking process. I can get back 

to you on exactly when we are going to be releasing that information, but we are working on it and we have a plan to release it. 

Mr. PITTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My time has expired. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from 

New York, Mr. Tonko, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And, Director Cummings, 

thank you for joining us. I have to state, I don’t envy your position 

today, having to appear before this committee and defend the agency and, frankly, its weak, as I would see it, record of achievement. 

That is not a reflection on you, but of the failure of the Administration and Congress to support this agency and the vital safety mission that PHMSA serves. 

Mr. Weimer, in his testimony, said there is plenty of blame to be 

shared for the slowness in implementing pipeline safety initiatives. 

I agree. Placing blame doesn’t solve any problems. Aggressive, faster action is what we need. That requires additional sustained resources for your agency, our job here in Congress, and it requires 

PHMSA, DOT, and the Administration truly to put safety first. 

We have been installing and conveying petroleum, petroleum 

products, and natural gas for pipelines for more than 60 years, and 

I simply do not believe we have to continue to tolerate the number 

of accidents that occur as a basic cost of doing business. 

Section 8 of the 2011 Pipeline Safety Act directed the agency to 

study leak detection systems used by hazardous liquid pipeline operators, and to issue regulations to require lead detection on these 

pipelines and/or to set leak detection standards. The fact that Congress needed to put this into law in 2011 is disappointing. It seems 

to be a basic safety requirement that should have been in place 

some time ago, and I believe PHMSA completed that required 

study at the end of 2012, as you indicated. That is correct, right? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. That is correct, 2012. 

Mr. TONKO. So when are we going to see a proposed rule, a final 

rule? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. The status of the rulemakings that I spoke of 

earlier are notice of proposed rulemakings. We at PHMSA, the current team, the executive team, as well as the career staff, are focused and are completely committed to getting those proposed rules 

complete, getting them issued, and then quickly turning around, 

39 

looking at stakeholder feedback, and turning them into rules. We 

are absolutely committed to that, and we have a plan to do it. 

Mr. TONKO. Well, we are going to watch closely. Apparently, 

damage to pipelines by excavation continues to be one of the main 

causes of significant pipeline incidents. As I stated earlier, we have 

been building and using pipelines for a very long time. How detailed and accurate are the maps of the existing pipeline network? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. I spoke earlier about the National Pipeline Mapping Program that we have, and as you point out, the availability 

of data there is as good as the data that comes into it. It is complete from a federal perspective of our oversight, but there is more 

information that we would like to collect. Data is one area that I 

think we have room to improve, and I think we have room to work 

together to improve. Being able to have complete access and visibility and transparency across the country, and also to be able to 

evaluate through our data, our data systems and analytics, those 

are all very important and things that we are looking to do in the 

future, and it would be great to work with this committee to figure 

out ways to use data more effectively. 

Mr. TONKO. Yes. Thank you. Most decisions about zoning and development are made at the local level. Is there a way to better engage our local officials? Do mayors and planning boards have appropriate access, great access to information that impacts their 

communities? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes. That is a great question. Part of our Stakeholder Outreach Program at PHMSA looks at all sorts of things, 

ways that we can get information out, public workshops, local open 

houses, as well as the grant programs that we have, specifically 

around things like excavation damage. We also look at ways that 

we can provide information to localities about planning and development as people start to move closer to pipelines that have been 

there for a very long time, and we do a lot of outreach related to 

that, as well as support to local planning. Our state partners are 

critical in our National Pipeline Safety Program, and so any way 

that way improve that collaboration, improve that relationship, we 

want to do that, and we are definitely open to ideas for how we 

could do that better. 

Mr. TONKO. And I thank you. 

It seems as though I am almost out of time here. I would just 

encourage us to move along with the final plans that will be presented, the proposals that you have talked of, and to be able to go 

forward and address safety to the max. 

And with that, thank you, Mr. Chair, I yield back. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. The gentleman yields back. 

At this time, recognize the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Latta, for 

5 minutes. 

Mr. LATTA. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thanks very 

much to our witnesses for being with us today. Appreciate your testimony today. 

And I was interested in your testimony where you cited that we 

have about 2.6 million miles of pipeline right now in the Nation, 

and that—also that the mileage is going up every year from the 

past where we were doing, it looks like you said, between 3 to 

4,000 miles, and now to about 3,500 or 7,500 miles—— 

40 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes. 

Mr. LATTA [continuing]. Per year. And I know that we have had 

the Secretary of Energy in and he talked about the energy boom, 

of course, that is occurring in this country on the natural gas and 

on the oil side, which makes it essential that we have the pipelines 

out there to move the energy that we have. And, of course, like 

across Ohio and across my district there are new pipelines being 

proposed, and I was wondering if you could—again, from your testimony, you state that you would like to work again more with Congress to explain those risk reduction proposals. So if you, again, 

could give more information to us on that, what those proposals 

might be on those reductions. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Sure. You did mention new construction and 

growth of the network. We do intend to spend about 25 percent of 

our inspection time supporting and looking at new construction 

pipelines. The best time to ensure that a pipeline is safe is during 

construction, and before it actually goes into operation. And so the 

regulations that we have overseeing new construction as well as 

our inspection and enforcement are critical to long-term pipeline 

safety. 

From a risk perspective, some of the things that we are working 

on in terms of integrity management are to improve the actual integrity management process, but also to expand it into areas where 

integrity management isn’t in place right now. Integrity management puts the onus on the operator to identify risk and—they use 

risk models in order to do that so that they can prioritize their investment in safety in their pipelines. 

One of the things we are doing in September is we are going to 

hold a workshop, and we are going to look at risk modeling across 

multiple industries, and we are going to see how we, PHMSA, can 

take that information and then share it back out with the industry 

so they can improve their risk models, because the best way to implement integrity management is to properly identify, properly assess risk, that way they can mitigate it. And our goal is to prevent 

a failure before it happens. And that is what risk management enables us to do in the Pipeline Safety Program. 

Mr. LATTA. Well, thank you. And I know it has come up a little 

bit before in regards to the whole question about the Call Before 

You Dig—— 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes. 

Mr. LATTA [continuing]. And I know that around the areas you 

have the signs up that—I know that companies have about the— 

call the 811 number. And also I see in your testimony that 28.3 

percent of all distribution incidents were caused by the excavation 

damage, and that cost $25 million in damages, one fatality, and 15 

injuries. And you state that you are working hard to raise the 811 

awareness, but could you give more detail about what you are 

doing to raise that with the local communities again because, 

again, for a lot of us, we came from local governments at one point 

in our lives, and I was a county commissioner, and we had the 

planning commission that we all served on, but what are you doing 

to really get that information out, because I know that you talked 

about the mapping—— 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes. 

41 

Mr. LATTA [continuing]. And trying to find that information out, 

not only what Mr. Shimkus had brought up about in regards to 

water, but others about existing pipelines, but what are we doing 

to try to get that, for that 811 information for people to know that, 

you know, because a lot of times when people think about Call Before You Dig, they are thinking, well, before I go out in my backyard and I am going to dig a new hole for a tree, that I don’t want 

to hit some kind of a, you know, an electric line. But now we are 

talking about those transmission lines out there with excavation. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes. One of the most frequent causes of pipeline 

failure is excavation damage. And we have our 811 Program which 

we oversee in conjunction with Common Ground Alliance, a not-forprofit group that works on 811. We do have a grant program associated with excavation damage, as well as Call Before You Dig. We 

have been doing a lot of outreach. You might have seen the Triple 

Crown winner was wearing an 811 hat this year. You will see that 

we are having an 811 day at National Stadium. We are trying to 

use media as well as our local relationships with the local Common 

Ground Alliance folks to get the word out to use 811 and Call Before You Dig. It has been proven through a study that if you use 

811, it is over 99 percent effective. So what we need is for people 

to be making the call, because we know that if you make the call, 

that it is going to be effective. 

Mr. LATTA. Well, thank you very much. 

And, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. The gentleman yields back. 

At this time, I recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Green, 

for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Cummings, I don’t think it is a secret that I am a big supporter of pipelines. I represent a district in north Houston and east 

Houston where I have never not lived on pipeline easements in my 

life, so I have a pretty good understanding about the utility of pipelines. It is the safest way to move a product. And I guess that is 

why I am disappointed that we haven’t dealt with the requirements 

from the previous reauthorization to now, and since I live there 

and work there, I think that we need quicker response. In the 4 

years since we reauthorized pipeline safety last time, and due to 

the rapid expansion of oil and gas production, the U.S. will need 

to build thousands more miles of new pipelines, including gathering and transmission lines. Additionally, our power generation 

sector increasingly relies on natural gas as we need more distribution lines as well. But we need to make sure these pipelines continue to be the safest mode for that transportation, compared to 

rail and truck. We must also address the replacement of the pipelines. Our infrastructure continues to age. And PHMSA recently 

discussed a plan called hazardous liquids integrity verification 

process. What has the reception been to that plan from the stakeholders? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. The hazardous liquid proposed rule is one of the 

rules that I have been talking about. We did issue an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking. We did get stakeholder input, and we 

have used that to put back into the rulemaking process. We hope 

to be issuing a proposed rule on that within the year, and we are 

42 

working hard on that. Stakeholder input was an important part of 

that process. If you would like, I can put together a briefing that 

specifically identifies all the stakeholder input that we have gotten, 

but I think that—and I know you have another panel that will 

have industry reps, I think that industry is as anxious as we are 

at PHMSA to have regulatory certainty, and I think that the plan 

that we have moving forward will enable that regulatory certainty. 

And so we appreciate your support in giving us the time to complete that plan and getting that information—— 

Mr. GREEN. Well, we may take you up on that. If it is not with 

the committee, we have a Natural Gas Caucus here—— 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes. 

Mr. GREEN [continuing]. That we may ask you to—— 

Ms. CUMMINGS. OK. 

Mr. GREEN [continuing]. Come over. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. OK. 

Mr. GREEN. When discussing pipeline replacement, is the cost recovery a major issue? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes, absolutely. We issued in 2011 a Call to Action, and a majority of the states have responded to that, but as 

you point out, replacement of old pipes has a cost to it, and a lot 

of our stakeholders are municipalities and they have to do that 

through—figuring out ways to recapture the cost. So that is an 

issue that those stakeholders are working. 

Mr. GREEN. What agencies are primarily responsible for setting 

these policies? I know it could be state and federal, or both. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes. 

Mr. GREEN. Is that true on the policies for pipeline replacement? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. I am not sure I understand your question. Sorry. 

Mr. GREEN. OK. I assume if they are interstate pipeline—— 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes. 

Mr. GREEN [continuing]. It is federal, but in some cases it is also 

a state authority, and I know in Texas, still a misnomer, our Railroad Commission is actually our pipeline agency. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes. 

Mr. GREEN. But how do you work with other states who may 

have an interest in it. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Right. Sorry about that. Of the 2.6 million miles, 

while we issue regulations and are responsible for pipeline safety 

across the country, we rely on our state partners to oversee and 

regulate 80 percent of those pipelines, and so we have a strong relationship with the states. We provide them training and certification. We also provide them grant funding. We evaluate them on 

a regular basis to make sure that they have the skills and tools 

that they need, and we also have a mentor program that we use 

to improve state performance when it comes to the oversight, the 

regulation of pipelines. 

Mr. GREEN. OK. Mr. Chairman, I am almost out of time, but I 

have questions that I would like to submit on PHMSA’s leak detection integrity management rules guidelines, and also the coordination for it. I would be glad to submit those questions. Thank you. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Thank you. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Thank you. 

43 

At this time, recognize the gentleman from West Virginia, Mr. 

McKinley, 5 minutes. 

Mr. MCKINLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

This issue is particularly important to us in West Virginia as we 

are trying to transport the Marcellus and the Utica gas throughout 

the state, and finish the network of piping, but it seems a few 

months don’t go by without another leak, another explosion, another fire. We just had one last week again. It just seems to be one 

after another, and I don’t know how we are going to stem the loss 

of confidence of the American public that we are doing all that we 

should be doing to do this, because it is as though someone is willing to let these things happen because then people turn on fossil 

fuels, whether that is oil or gas. So I am hoping it is not part of 

a plan here to slow the implementation. 

How would you grade the fact—I was a little startled when 17 

of the 42 standards have not been met. How would you grade the 

performance of the agency? Would you give yourself an A for what 

you have done? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Out of the 42 mandates, we have completed—— 

Mr. MCKINLEY. How would you grade yourself? 

Ms. CUMMINGS [continuing]. Twenty six, but we—— 

Mr. MCKINLEY. How you grade your—are you doing an A grade, 

a B, how would you grade yourself? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. I have been very, very impressed with the staff 

that I have met at PHMSA, and when it comes to commitment to 

safety and desire—— 

Mr. MCKINLEY. How would you grade yourself—— 

Ms. CUMMINGS [continuing]. To get these rules done—— 

Mr. MCKINLEY [continuing]. You have—— 

Ms. CUMMINGS [continuing]. I would definitely give us—— 

Mr. MCKINLEY [continuing]. Evaded twice already the question 

that was asked of you—— 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes. 

Mr. MCKINLEY [continuing]. On both sides of the aisle. What is 

the schedule—— 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes. 

Mr. MCKINLEY [continuing]. And you avoided it, very effectively 

I might add. But now—I am going to ask that same question, but 

right now first, how would you grade your performance? Do you 

think it is a passing grade, is it a C, a B, how would you grade— 

did you do what you were asked to do? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. We are—— 

Mr. MCKINLEY. Yes or no, did—A or B? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. We have not completed all of the mandates that 

you have asked us to complete, but we are absolutely making 

progress on every single one of them—— 

Mr. MCKINLEY. I hear—— 

Ms. CUMMINGS [continuing]. And—— 

Mr. MCKINLEY [continuing]. So you are not—you are going to 

play that game with me too, I guess. So the other two questions 

were when is the schedule? Are you going to finish at the end of 

this year, is it going to be spring of next year, when? Don’t tell me 

to go find it myself on a Web site. I am asking you, when will you 

be finished? 

44 

Ms. CUMMINGS. I can tell you that we have a plan, and I can tell 

you that we are working with our stakeholders to go through the 

methodical rulemaking process, and that every single person at 

PHMSA is absolutely committed to getting that plan done. 

Mr. MCKINLEY. I am sure you said that back in—2 years—you 

or your agency said over the last 3 years, but this has been since 

2011, and I am sure the low-hanging fruit was already picked to 

make that happen, but we have 17 more that probably are contentious. When will they be finished, when will they be approved? You 

blamed OMB. I wish OMB were here—whether or not they would 

accept that responsibility, but you threw them under the bus. So 

I am just trying—what do we have to do to—I want to restore the 

trust of the American public that enough is enough, and I am not 

getting confidence at all from you. It is very evasive on this. So 

how would you do it? If you are not going to answer the question, 

you are going to tell me go find it yourself. Is that correct? Go find 

it myself? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. What I wanted to express when I was telling you 

about the Web site was that we are being as transparent as possible by posting that information on the Web site. The status of 

every single individual rule, where it has been and where it is 

going, and how long it has been there, is absolutely available. It 

is a very transparent process. We have a plan moving forward. As 

I said, we have two rules that I think are close to being complete 

within this calendar year, and we have some other rules that we 

are working very hard on at PHMSA to get complete, and to have 

our economic analysis complete so that we can move to issuing 

those proposed rules. 

Mr. MCKINLEY. So are you suggesting that by the end of next 

year you may have all 42 mandates complete? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. I know that the rulemaking process that we are 

currently going through is going to address 11 of the mandates, 

and that we have reports that are currently being finalized that 

are going to address four of the mandates. And so yes, we are making progress on absolutely every single one of them. I simply can’t 

look into the future and see what stakeholder input we may get, 

what new technology might be developed, or what new requirements might come up to change our priorities to say exactly when 

all 42 will be done, but I can tell you that every single person at 

PHMSA is—— 

Mr. MCKINLEY. Well, I hope—— 

Ms. CUMMINGS [continuing]. Committed at getting—— 

Mr. MCKINLEY [continuing]. Your priorities—— 

Ms. CUMMINGS [continuing]. To getting them done. 

Mr. MCKINLEY. I hope your priorities are reestablishing the confidence of the American public, that we are doing everything we 

can to give them pipeline safety. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. And that is what we want as well. 

Mr. MCKINLEY. I yield back my time. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Thank you, Congressman. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. At this time, recognize the gentlelady from California, Mrs. Capps, for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. CAPPS. Thank you, Ms. Cummings, for your testimony. My 

questions today, because there are still so many unanswered ones 

45 

about the causes of and responses to the May 19 Plains oil spill in 

my district, will have to do with that particular incident. 

I know the investigation, not the rulemaking necessarily, but the 

investigation takes time. It is important to get the facts right, but 

it has been 2 months since the spill occurred on the pristine coastline, Gaviota Coast, my district. When will this investigation be 

completed and the results shared with the public? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Thank you, Congresswoman Capps. And before 

I answer, I would just like to thank you for your support of the 

agency, as well as the time you have spent with our PHMSA employees and talking to them out in Santa Barbara. They appreciated it, and I hope you found, as I have, how dedicated to safety 

those PHMSA staff are, and that they take this oil spill personally, 

just like you do. 

The investigation will take time. There are many aspects that 

will require third party evaluation, as well as research into different parts of the organization about what happened. Some of the 

things that we are specifically focused on is that third party evaluation of the condition of the pipe. I think the last I heard, that 

is going to take a couple of months to get the report from the third 

party evaluator. 

Mrs. CAPPS. OK. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. The third party evaluation of the inline inspection, that is going to take a couple of months. 

Mrs. CAPPS. All right. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. A corrective action order can actually be in place 

for several months, and—— 

Mrs. CAPPS. OK. 

Ms. CUMMINGS [continuing]. It is not until—go ahead. 

Mrs. CAPPS. I don’t want to cut you off, but I do want—— 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes. 

Mrs. CAPPS [continuing]. To ask some other questions as well, 

and so I now have a timeframe. And thank you. Please keep this— 

my office and my constituents—that is a good way to do it, and this 

committee updated as to how things progress. 

I must say the information we have so far is very troubling. 

Makes us question the condition of—now I understand it is millions 

of miles of pipeline running through our country. As you know, 

Plains did an inline inspection of line 901, May 5, and this is just 

2 weeks before that very line ruptured. This inspection showed 45 

percent metal loss at the rupture site, yet now we are now shocked 

to discover that the actual level of corrosion was over 80 percent 

when the ruptured pipe was evacuated. I have seen it myself. 

Ms. Cummings, were you surprised by the disparity, and is this 

a common occurrence? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. The inline inspection tool provides a great deal 

of data, and that data has to be analyzed by experts in order to 

determine what the data is telling them. They also go out and actually do digs and look at those anomalies to compare them to the 

data to make sure that they are getting the right information. I 

think that the results of an inline inspection need to be looked at 

from an expert on the data and an expert on pipelines—— 

Mrs. CAPPS. OK. I am cutting you off again, but—— 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Sorry. 

46 

Mrs. CAPPS [continuing]. You are making it sound so obtuse. It 

is a disparity. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. It is a disparity. 

Mrs. CAPPS. And it is disturbing, and it is not the only time it 

happened. Plains has reported that the inline inspection also overestimated the amount of corrosion at other points along the pipeline. We would rather have an overestimate than—of a corrosion 

than underestimate, but these inline inspections are clearly not 

very accurate. Whether the issue is with the technology, system operators, or both, there is clearly a problem here. So what is 

PHMSA doing to improve the accuracy? I mean either over or 

under—— 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes. 

Ms. CAPPS [continuing]. What can we do to improve the accuracy 

of the inline inspections in general? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. To your point of the investigation, that will be 

part of our investigation, but looking at inline inspection and other 

assessment tools across the board, our research and development 

budget in our program is a partnership with industry where we 

identify those areas where we can use our funds to invest in future 

safety technologies, and one of the technologies we invest in a lot 

is inline inspection and other assessments. And so your support of 

our research and development program is actually the best way for 

us to be able to improve that assessment data, and get closer to 

reality, and to be able to mitigate risk. 

Mrs. CAPPS. Thank you. In addition, and I hope I can get my 

third question out here, in addition to corrosion on line 901, dozens 

of corrosion problems have been found on an adjacent line 903, a 

longer and wider segment of pipe connected to the ruptured line 

901. These numerous problems have been outlined in your corrective action order, and I have your submission of those to us here, 

and want to submit them for the record here. Plains has even acknowledged the problem by accelerating the frequency of its inline 

inspections after its 2012 inspection found 41 anomalies serious 

enough to require excavation. Yet, despite the pattern of corrosion 

and failure to accurately measure the level of corrosion on the rupture site, PHMSA is still allowing Plains to operate 903 line to reduce pressure. Why is PHMSA allowing line 903 to operate when 

it has the very same corrosion disparities and problems as the 

pipeline that ruptured? What assurances can you provide that line 

903 won’t have the same problems that line 901? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. As you pointed out in our corrective action order, 

we did notice similarities between 901 and 903, and so we took 

that imminent hazard and we applied it to line 903, and we have 

put additional requirements on Plains. Line 901 is empty. Line 903 

does have oil in it. They are not operating it in regular course of 

action. About 100 miles away from the coast, just a portion of 903 

is intermittently being operated, but the rest of 903 remains shut 

down. And they will only be able to operate under our authority if 

we allow them under the corrective action order. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Gentlelady’s time has expired. 

At this time, I would like to recognize the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Griffith, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Thank you very much. Appreciate you being here. 

47 

Mr. McKinley touched on it. Others have touched on it. Mrs. 

Capps, in her questions, although she didn’t say it directly. One of 

the big concerns here is that we passed a law 4 years ago in an 

attempt to make the pipelines safer. We are still trying to get those 

regulations implemented. They are not ready yet. And there is a 

confidence, or a lack of confidence, from the public. 

Now, I am going to take just a second and go to a different subject. I promise you it is relevant. The EPA’s Clean Power Plan, the 

final rules are not out yet, some 13 to 16 months after that rule 

comes out, the states have to come up with their plan, and by 2020 

they have to start implementing that plan. As a result, in part of 

that pressure being placed on electric generation companies, 2 

major pipelines, see, I told you I would bring it around, 2 major 

pipelines have been proposed coming through my region of the 

state. I represent a big chunk of one of them, and the other one 

affects constituents of mine, even if it doesn’t actually come 

through my district. Their concern, in many ways, is about safety. 

And I have been communicating this morning with one of those 

constituents. Her farm is going to be affected by the Atlantic Coast 

Pipeline. And there are real concerns there, and part of the concern, and the lack of confidence, is the states and individuals are 

having to deal with the consequences of these EPA regulations 

faster than you can get the regulations for safety that we passed 

4 years ago implemented. What do I say to them when they say 

to me, in rural areas, the shut-offs are only 20 miles apart. Twenty 

miles apart. That is a long way on a rural road if you have to get 

from point A to point B, that is not following a road. What do I 

say to them about the safety components when you all can’t even 

get the regs out that we thought were necessary that you get out 

4 years ago, because of previous safety problems? How do I make 

my constituents feel like if somebody is putting a 42-inch natural 

gas pipeline through their property or near their property, or they 

are near one of the compressing and pumping stations, how can 

they feel safe, what can you say to them, because I will tell you 

that this one constituent in particular is watching, so look at the 

camera and tell her how can she feel safe if her farm is now going 

to be dissected or cut through by a pipeline? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Well, PHMSA is first and foremost a safety agency, and the safety of those pipelines are what we think about 100 

percent of the time. And while we are working on those 42 mandates, and working on getting those regulations out, we have a lot 

of experience with new construction because we spend about 25 

percent of our inspection time with new construction, looking at 

how they are implementing our regulations, how they are testing 

to make sure they are safe, and what we have done is we have actually learned a lot about new construction that we have put out 

through safety advisory bulletins, that we have put out to the industry in different ways that helps to ensure that we learn a lesson. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. And I know that you are trying, but it doesn’t instill confidence when we hear about other pipeline problems in 

other parts of the country, when we hear that pipelines that may 

have problems are still being used, and now they are saying they 

want to bring a pipeline through our area. It causes great concern 

48 

on the safety factor. What about the shut-offs in rural areas, 

should they be closer together. Is that something that we should 

be working on in Congress? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. So I think we talked earlier about a 2012 report 

that talked about automatic shut-off valves, and it talked about 

them being technically, operationally, and economically feasible, 

but not in all cases. And so we will be putting out proposed rules 

that will capture the right stakeholder information to make sure 

that we put out regulations that are going to meet the safety requirements without creating unintended consequences. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Well—and I appreciate that. Another question I 

get on a regular basis as a result of being right in the eye of the 

storm for major pipelines coming through the area is why are we 

cutting through new paths? Is there some safety reason why you 

don’t want to collocate natural gas pipelines together, because we 

are cutting through a bunch of new paths, not following the lines 

that are already there? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes. We as a safety agency, we don’t have a primary lead role in the permitting and—— 

Mr. GRIFFITH. I understand that. My question is, is there a safety concern with collocation? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes, I understand. Can I get back to you on the 

record? I don’t know the answer to that question, I am sorry. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. All right, I would greatly appreciate it because I 

probably have—I know I have at least one watching, but I have a 

lot of constituents who want to know the answer to that question. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. OK. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. With that, I see my time is up. And, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate you having this important hearing, and I yield 

back. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. At this time, recognize Mr. Loebsack for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good to see you, Ms. 

Cummings. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Thank you. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. I am from Iowa, and I think a lot of us on both 

sides of the aisle have a lot of concerns being from these rural 

areas—— 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes. 

Mr. LOEBSACK [continuing]. And I echo many of those concerns 

that have been already mentioned today. I think I mentioned to 

you before your testimony that we have a proposed Bakken Pipeline that would extend from northwest Iowa down through my district, much of my district, all the way down to southeast Iowa, and 

it would bring that crude from North Dakota, transport it eventually to points of the east and south. And I just have a question, 

from your perspective, you mentioned that you are involved in safety and all the rest. Eventually, this is going to be approved or not 

by the Iowa Utilities Board, there is not a federal role as far as approval of this pipeline is concerned, but can you talk to me a little 

bit about sort of the safety concerns that you folks basically have 

supervision over when it comes to something like this? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Sure. Thank you. The most important thing that 

we can do is to build safety and build quality into the pipeline beVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:39 Feb 29, 2016 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00054 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 114\114-67 CHRIS
49 

fore it actually goes into operation. And so the requirements in our 

regulations for new construction, a lot of them are prescriptive. So 

they are looking at things like the material in the weld, and making sure that they are properly installed by qualified people to install them. We also require a hydro test to make sure that, before 

the pipeline goes into operation, that it is safe and that there are 

no leaks. We would encourage new construction pipeline to do 

inline assessments, and to really understand the attributes of the 

pipeline so that when integrity management principles are applied 

to that pipeline, that there is a baseline that they can use going 

forward to look at trends and to be able to identify that risk. And 

our goal is to prevent pipeline failures, and integrity management 

and risk management, and inline assessments and other assessments are the way that we do that. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. So as the regulations currently exist, encourage 

is the word—the best word that you can use at this point? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. On the hydro test and on the other requirements, those are prescriptive, those are requirements. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. Yes. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. We have shared information. There is information available in partnership with industry on best practices, and 

when we identify issues that we see are common across different 

new construction, whether they are directly applicable to our prescriptive regulations, or whether they are best practices, we have 

ways that we can share them with our stakeholders to make sure 

everyone is aware through safety advisories or through workshops. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. And so I think that is one of the big concerns that 

I am hearing—— 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes. 

Mr. LOEBSACK [continuing]. Expressed throughout my district is 

the whole safety issue, leakage, all those things. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. And if, in fact, the Iowa Utilities Board does approve this pipeline, I am going to want to make sure that my constituents get the best information possible. Opponents are never 

going to be convinced this thing is going to be entirely safe—— 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes. 

Mr. LOEBSACK [continuing]. But using the word encourage 

doesn’t give me a lot of confidence when I go home and then say 

to them, well, you know, the regulators are telling me they are 

going to encourage folks to do this or that. So I would hope that 

there would be something much stronger than that in the regulations. And I do want to, of course, agree with folks here today who 

have expressed concerns that we haven’t seen the final rulemaking 

actually done yet for a number of these things, and I just want to 

encourage you, obviously, to use that word, because that is all I can 

do to make sure that we finish this up. 

I have one other question having to do—I don’t think it has been 

brought up yet today. I served on the Armed Services Committee 

for 8 years. Traveled overseas quite a lot. I am not on the Homeland Security Committee, but, I have a map, an alleged map at 

least, of pipelines that are in Iowa, and I didn’t get that map because I am a Member of Congress and because I have some kind 

of security clearance to have access to that map. I have a lot of conVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:39 Feb 29, 2016 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00055 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 114\114-67 CHRIS
50 

cerns about access to information that is open to the public, especially when it comes to potential terrorist threats. Talk to me about 

that. Talk to us about that. How this information that could be 

used by potential domestic or international terrorists to disrupt a 

pipeline gas or oil, or whatever the case may be, how are we sure 

that information is not available to folks out there who want to do 

harm to our country? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. The National Pipeline Mapping System does 

have rule-based access, meaning that the information that is available to the public is information that we have deemed is not security-sensitive. We take that threat very seriously as well, and this 

committee and our statutory authority has given us the ability to 

redact information that we make public to make sure that security 

sensitive information is not included in public release. The information that is available to local lawmakers, to local emergency responders, they apply for that access, and they are only given that 

access when we verify their identity and their need to have that 

type of information. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. OK. Thank you. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Thank you. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. Thank you for your testimony. 

And I yield back, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. The chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio, 

Mr. Johnson, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, Ms. Cummings, 

thanks for joining us today. 

In your response to Representative Olson a little bit ago, you 

said that PHMSA is looking at how to improve and expand—improve, expand, and enhance risk-based management. Would you explain a little bit more in detail what you mean by that? How are 

you going to go about doing that? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Sure. We have several ongoing rulemakings that 

have been the topic of discussion this morning, and integrity management, which is our risk-based approach to pipeline safety in 

high consequence areas, relies on that risk-based approach. And 

those rules are going to be proposed to expand where we are using 

those risk-based methodologies, meaning on the percentage of pipe 

that we are looking at to apply those integrity management principles where it makes sense, and also to improve integrity management. I mentioned that in September, we are going to be holding 

a workshop, and we are going to be bringing in folks from across 

different industries such as aviation, the energy industry, nuclear, 

for example, who use risk-based approaches, and look at how they 

model risk because in order to mitigate the proper risk, in order 

to avoid a pipeline failure, you need to be identifying the right risk, 

assessing that risk, and then mitigating it properly for your pipeline. And so those are some of the examples of ways that we are 

going to be improving integrity management, both internal to 

PHMSA and our oversight, but also integrity management in the 

industry. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Are you including cost in that analysis and in the 

improvement effort, and are you having difficulty in incorporating 

cost into a risk-based regulation? 

51 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Our statutory authority for PHMSA requires 

that our regulations have benefits that exceed costs. So that is part 

of our statutory requirement. So yes, we are looking at the cost to 

implement these improvements versus the safety benefit. So in 

order to do that, we have a team of economists and they look at 

past performance, so the risk goes back to likelihood and consequence, the likelihood and the cost of that consequence, and then 

the safety requirements we put in place, how much it costs to implement them, and we do a comparison of the benefit versus the 

cost. 

Mr. JOHNSON. OK. All right, Section 21, Ms. Cummings, directed 

PHMSA to review and report to Congress on existing federal and 

state regulations for all gathering lines. With the report, which was 

submitted more than 1 year late, PHMSA stated that it is considering the need to propose additional regulations to ensure the safety of natural gas and hazardous liquid gathering lines. So is 

PHMSA reviewing the need to propose changes to existing exemptions from federal regulations for gathering lines, and if so, when 

will this review conclude? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Yes, the report that you are referring to we delivered to Congress earlier this year, and what we found is that 

some gathering lines are actually—have the same attributes as 

transmission lines as far as size and amount carried. And so as a 

result of that report, we are looking at our regulations and we expect to propose in our future rulemaking proposals in the near future, to look at how we can capture more information about gathering lines, as well as what parts of our regulations should be applied to gathering lines based on what we learned in that report. 

Mr. JOHNSON. OK. All right. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. The gentleman yields back. 

At this time, recognize the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Sarbanes, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. SARBANES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for being 

here. 

Can you give us a sense of how much pipeline infrastructure 

overall is within the jurisdiction of your agency, kind of describe 

that quickly? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Sure. There are 2.6 million miles of pipeline in 

the nation. While we as a federal regulator, we issue regulations 

across the entire nation for those pipelines, from an oversight and 

enforcement perspective, we partner with the states. So the states 

actually oversee 80 percent of those 2.6 million pipelines. We enforce and oversee 20 percent. But the states are very close partners 

of ours. We provide them with training, certification, as well as 

grant funding, and we provide them mentorship as well. 

Mr. SARBANES. So do you consider—I mean your direct oversight 

is with respect to 20 percent, but—— 

Ms. CUMMINGS. That is right. 

Mr. SARBANES [continuing]. Presumably, you consider yourself as 

having oversight responsibility with respect to the 100 percent acting in partnership. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Correct. In partnership with our states. 

52 

Mr. SARBANES. Yes. And can you give me a sense of the actual 

amount of FTE, or sort of what the capacity of your compliance and 

enforcement staff is within your agency specifically? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Sure. We are very grateful that this year our 

2015 budget gave us the funding we needed to hire 109 new people 

into the pipeline part of our organization. Our field staff prior to 

that influx of new people was about 135 people. We are bringing 

in that 109 new people, so we are almost doubling our enforcement 

staff with the positions that were appropriated—the funds that 

were appropriated this year for new positions. So we have in the 

past, I would say if you are looking at legacy—— 

Mr. SARBANES. Yes. 

Ms. CUMMINGS [continuing]. Thirty, thirty-five or so positions. 

Mr. SARBANES. In any event, I would imagine that you have 

some reasonable expectation that the industry, the pipeline industry itself, will come with kind of a good faith commitment to meeting the standards that apply to it. Nevertheless, we have seen companies, like the Plains All American Pipeline and others, that don’t 

have a great track record when it comes to putting these kinds of 

things in place and adhering to them. And I was wondering what 

your thoughts might be on ways to create more accountability within the industry itself, within these companies, so that the sort of 

compliance and accountability arm within those organizations has 

a heightened sense of responsibility. That could include things like 

certifying that they are meeting certain standards as a corporation, 

for example, an understanding that there might be consequences 

for not stepping up to that statement of accountability. Have you 

thought about things like that that could improve what I would say 

in the best sense could be cooperation between the agency’s oversight and the industry’s own responsibility to come in and step up 

to its accountability? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Absolutely. An operator is 100 percent responsible for the safety of the pipelines that they operate, and they do 

so under our enforcement and under our guidance and regulations. 

One thing that we at PHMSA were happy to see is, in the last 

week, API released a safety management system best practices document that really was the industry coming together and looking at 

a tool, safety management systems—— 

Mr. SARBANES. Yes. 

Ms. CUMMINGS [continuing]. That has been successful in other 

industries, and it would take sort of the things we have been talking about today, about integrity management being risk-driven, 

and really take that to another level. So I believe that the industry 

is responsible for safety. I think that they know they are responsible for safety. This is a great step that they took in partnership 

with us. We were on the teams putting this together. The combination of both prescriptive and performance-based regulations from 

PHMSA are another way that industry can, through our performance-based specifications, apply technology that is going to make 

the pipeline system, the pipeline networks, safer. 

Mr. SARBANES. Right. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. And so, yes, there is a lot we can do together—— 

Mr. SARBANES. Great. OK. 

Ms. CUMMINGS [continuing]. To improve pipeline safety. 

53 

Mr. SARBANES. Well, I appreciate that. And it will be interesting 

to monitor how the industry fulfills those new expectations, but I 

think that there could be a place in the future if we don’t see that 

kind of accountability that needs to be there, for people within 

these organizations kind of having to sign on the dotted line and 

certify that these things are in place, and put their name as leaders of those organizations behind those commitments. 

Thank you, and I yield back. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. At this time, recognize the gentleman from 

Texas, Mr. Flores, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. FLORES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Ms. 

Cummings, for joining us today. 

A lot of great questions have been answered and so I just have 

a couple of things I would like to drill into that follow up a little 

bit on Mr. Sarbanes’ question, but more closely to Mr. Pitts’ questions. I think in response to one of Mr. Pitt’s questions you said 

that the progress you have made to—hiring that 109 new people 

is 46 percent, is that correct? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Correct. 

Mr. FLORES. OK, I just want to verify that. And in your response 

you also said something about requesting direct hire approval. Can 

you tell the committee what does that give you, what does that 

mean, and how do you get that approval? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Direct hire authority is a tool in the Federal 

Government that allows us to streamline the hiring process. It is 

something that we had requested of the Office of Personnel Management. We heard back that it was not approved. We think that 

that is one tool that we were looking at, but we are looking at a 

lot of other tools to recruit for qualified and well-educated people 

who want to dedicate their life to public service, and dedicate their 

life to safety. So we are actively recruiting for positions across the 

country, as well as here in D.C. And I think I mentioned also that 

tomorrow we are going to be having a veterans hiring fair at the 

Department of Transportation. So we are really focused on getting 

great people into the department, again, who are dedicated to public service. 

Mr. FLORES. If you had had direct hire authority at the beginning of the fiscal year when you got the additional funding, where 

do you think you would be on the hiring today? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. I think we would be much further along. I don’t 

want to commit and say that we would be at 100 percent right 

now. But we need to make sure that we are hiring the right people, 

and so a lot of the process is going through the reviewing resumes 

and making sure that we are doing good interviews, and that we 

are getting the right people with the right skills, but I do think we 

would make more progress. Thank you. 

Mr. FLORES. That is all the questions I have. Thank you. I yield 

back. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Thank you. 

At this time, recognize the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. 

Mullin, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MULLIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Ms. 

Cummings, for being here. 

54 

A lot of talk has been, obviously, on the pipelines and yet the 

pipelines still provide the best option, provide the resources we are 

needing to ship across this country from part A to part B. In fact, 

99.9 percent of all of it in the pipelines, be it natural gas or oil, 

gets to its destination with zero incidents. And without question, 

it is a vital part of the infrastructure, and a competitive advantage 

we have in this country for our energy rates being at the low level 

that they are. And what we are talking about right now is going 

back to 2011 when there were 17 mandates that hadn’t been implemented, and we have talked a lot about that, but I don’t know if 

we have really spent the time about the industry itself. See, as a 

business owner, the biggest problem we have is understanding 

where the regulatory environment is going, and it is certainty that 

we are needing. It is understanding of what are we going to have 

to comply with. When we are bidding a job, we have to understand 

what our cost is going to be. And since we have been waiting for 

4 years for PHMSA to implement these, it is creating a tremendous 

amount of uncertainty of knowing where the industry can go. We 

know we are going to have to start building some pipelines in a serious way. I mean as this Administration’s war on coal continues, 

we are going to have to get a lot more pipelines in the ground to 

provide the resources we are going to have to have. 

And, ma’am, the position that you are in is kind of in question. 

I mean you are filling in a position, and I commend you for 

that—— 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Thank you. 

Mr. MULLIN [continuing]. But are you capable right now to steer 

to steer PHMSA in the right direction? Are you able to make those 

decisions or are you guys going to be sitting there waiting for the 

next administrator to be assigned to you? 

Ms. CUMMINGS. The President nominated Marie Therese 

Dominguez—— 

Mr. MULLIN. Right. 

Ms. CUMMINGS [continuing]. And we are anxiously awaiting her 

confirmation. She is serving right now as the deputy administrator 

at PHMSA. The career staff, the entire operation at PHMSA is 

fully dedicated to achieving these mandates, and regardless of the 

fact that we are in a transition does not stop those career employees that work for us from every day dedicating their time to safety 

and to completing these mandates. 

Mr. MULLIN. Then why haven’t they been completed? When the 

President puts out an order, it is done. We seem to implement very 

complicated—in fact, some regulations it is not even obtainable and 

we are already enforcing them. And we are talking about setting 

17 mandates back from 2011. And look, I am not pushing for them 

to be there, I am just saying that either tell the industry you are 

moving forward or you are not, or say, hey, we are going to take 

the best practices that you guys have already put in place, which 

this might be an idea. What you guys have done, you have improved safety in a tremendous amount so far on your own. The industry has on their own. Maybe we take their best business practice and say we are going to take this and apply this, and we are 

going to see how it moves forward, rather than keeping the industry in limbo. And I understand, ma’am, you are doing the best you 

55 

can, but we are talking about an industry that is a vital resource 

that we have inside the United States, that provides the infrastructure and the resources that all of us use. I don’t care what side of 

the aisle you fall on fossil fuels or not, you use them. So we are 

trying to make sure that we don’t run short of that supply, and I 

am just wanting to make sure that we create the certainty for the 

industry that is needed to be there. And, Ms. Cummings, I really 

do applaud you because I think you are doing an outstanding job 

in the position that you are in, but I want to make sure that the 

industry isn’t held hostage at this time too. 

So thank you for being here. And thank you, Chairman, for holding this important meeting. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Well, thank you. 

And that concludes the questions, except for mine, and I am 

going to recognize myself for 5 minutes. But, Ms. Cummings, also, 

I want to thank you for being with us and addressing the concerns 

of the committee. 

Ms. CUMMINGS. Thank you. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. And I think it is quite obvious to everyone that 

one of the major concerns is that this Act was adopted in 2011, reauthorizing—we have 16 mandates that really have not been addressed. And Mr. Mullin, I think, made an important point in his 

remarks, and that is that these pipeline companies, as they are involved in maintenance, constructing new pipelines, making improvements, the uncertainty of what is going to happen in these 

areas does present some problems for them. And I don’t think any 

of us can say with certainty that the fact that these 16 mandates 

have not been put in a regulation had anything to do with these 

spills. We don’t know that. But one conclusion we can come up with 

and we know for a fact that you all cannot do any of your regulations, you can’t make them final without a signoff of OMB, they 

have to be involved in that process, and every agency—and in Congress, we all have our priorities and I think everyone recognizes 

that the priority for this Administration is the Clean Energy Plan, 

and that is a priority for OMB, and EPA has been super aggressive 

in that area. And one conclusion that we can come up with is that 

MSHA and the regulations coming out of your agency is not the 

same priority as the Clean Energy Plan in this Administration. 

Now, I am not going to ask you to address it, but that is a logical 

conclusion that we can come up with. 

So I want to thank you once again. We look forward to working 

with you as we move forward, and you can be relieved at this time. 

And thank you for being with us. 

And I would like to call up the second panel of witnesses at this 

time. And if the second panel would just have their seat, and then 

I am just going to introduce you when you give your opening 5- 

minute statement, and then we will go from there. 

OK, our first witness today is Mr. Stan Wise, who is a Commissioner with the Georgia Public Service Commission, and he is going 

to be testifying on behalf of the National Association of Regulatory 

Utility Commissioners. 

Mr. Wise, thanks very much for being with us, and you will be 

recognized for 5 minutes. And we would just ask you to turn the 

microphone on, and just kind of watch when the red light goes on 

56 

and your time has expired. But thanks for being with us, and you 

are recognized. 

STATEMENTS OF STAN WISE, COMMISSIONER, GEORGIA PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION (ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL 

ASSOCIATION OF REGULATORY UTILITY COMMISSIONERS); 

DONALD SANTA, PRESIDENT AND CEO, INTERSTATE NATURAL GAS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA; RON BRADLEY, VICE 

PRESIDENT OF GAS OPERATIONS, PECO ENERGY (ON BEHALF OF THE AMERICAN GAS ASSOCIATION); ANDREW 

BLACK, PRESIDENT AND CEO, ASSOCIATION OF OIL PIPE 

LINES; CARL WEIMER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PIPELINE 

SAFETY TRUST; AND DIANNE BLACK, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR 

OF PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT, COUNTY OF SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA 

STATEMENT OF STAN WISE 

Mr. WISE. Well, good morning, Mr. Chairman, and members of 

the committee. Thank you so much for this opportunity to testify 

on this very important issue. 

I am testifying on behalf of my state and NARUC, and first, let 

me just say that Georgia’s Pipeline Safety Program is one of the 

larger state programs based on service, miles, mains, inspectors, 

and budget, and our program has been ahead of the curve on cast 

iron replacement and bare steel. We have less than 5 miles remaining. We have done it over a 20-year period. And let me say, in no 

small part, it is important that we recognize the relationship that 

our inspectors and our state has had with PHMSA, and the ability 

to go ahead and be able to do the job we can because of that important financial partnership as well as a sharing of information as we 

go along. 

But one issue that continues to cause problems for us is the increasing delays in receiving base grant reimbursements, and like 

other states over the past few years, the amount of time that Georgia has had to wait to get paid for enforcing these important pipeline safety rules has increased steadily. 

And in years past, our finance department could depend on timely payments, which is very important in tight state budgets. This 

clearly is an issue that needs to be resolved. 

Nineteen states have adopted new civil penalty standards. Some 

states believe that it is more important to penalize earnings or 

rates of return rather than to simply levy fines. We also believe 

that the state damage prevention issue prevents some states from 

participating in the program, and ineligible for state one-call and 

preventive grants, because of state law. And these exemptions directly affect safety in those states, and is counterproductive to the 

goal of preventing damage. We do agree that PHMSA needs to publish the required study on automatic and remote-control shut-off 

valves. States need to know what this rate structure is, even if it 

raises rates in our state, for the stability that would be required 

for the installation and maintenance of these facilities. PHMSA has 

not published the evaluation of the current integrity management 

regulations, and whether or not these requirements should be expanded beyond the high consequence area. NARUC and its memVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:39 Feb 29, 2016 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00062 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 114\114-67 CHRIS
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bers are very interested in the findings of this study. High consequence areas, and they have not—PHMSA has not updated the 

National Pipeline Mapping System to include the identification of 

high consequence areas. 

On leak detection, PHMSA has produced a report, but not yet 

published the notice of proposed rulemaking. The language in the 

2011 Act has caused financial difficulties in the states which I referenced, and specifically to Georgia, and they must issue waivers 

for the 36 more states each year. 

Gathering lines is certainly important in this new paradigm of 

oil recovery in our country, and we suggest that the gathering lines 

should be regulated in order to risk to the public. 

Notice of proposed rulemaking released on excess flow valves was 

released earlier this month. NARUC is currently reviewing that 

proposal. 

We also believe that PHMSA has not yet implemented regulations on maximum allowable operating pressure. We need to see 

these rules in a prudent and expeditious manner to ensure the 

public safety of these lines. 

Mr. Chairman, we specifically speak to safety and efficiency 

issues. It could be economic. These are important issues to our 

states. The implementation and the reauthorization of the Pipeline 

Safety Act is important to NARUC and our states, and we thank 

you for this time to be able to express our views. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wise follows:] 

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[The addendum to Mr. Wise’s testimony has been retained in 

committee files and can be found at: http://docs.house.gov/meetings/if/if03/20150714/103737/hhrg-114-if03-wstate-wises20150714.pdf.] 


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Mr. WHITFIELD. Well, thank you, Mr. Wise. 

And our next witness is Donald Santa, who is the President and 

CEO of the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America. Mr. 

Santa, thanks for being with us, and you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF DONALD SANTA 

Mr. SANTA. Good afternoon, Chairman Whitfield, and members of 

the subcommittee. My name is Donald Santa, and I am president 

and CEO of the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, or 

INGAA. 

INGAA represents interstate natural gas transmission pipeline 

operators in the U.S. and Canada. The pipeline systems operated 

by INGAA’s 25 member companies are analogous to the interstate 

highway system; transporting natural gas across state and regional 

boundaries. 

In the wake of the natural gas pipeline accident in San Bruno, 

California, in 2010, INGAA’s Board of Directors committed the Association and its member companies to the goal of zero pipeline 

safety incidents. While this is a tough and some would say impossible goal to meet, the emphasis is in the right place; a pursuit of 

excellence. 

While progress towards INGAA’s goal of zero incidents must continue, whether or not new regulations are issued, it is important 

and desirable that there be consistency between the voluntary commitments in the INGAA action plan and the regulations that will 

implement the 2011 Pipeline Safety Act. INGAA has engaged in active dialogue with PHMSA and other stakeholders over the past 3 

years to achieve this goal. This has been constructive, and we have 

every reason to believe that the comprehensive rule proposed soon 

will affect INGAA’s input. Still, these proposed regulations are behind the schedule that Congress prescribed in 2011. INGAA acknowledges that regulation should be thoughtfully considered and 

include an analysis of costs and benefits. The practical consequences of this delay, however, is to erode the confidence of some 

pipeline companies that proceeding with the dedication of resources 

needed to implement the pipeline safety commitments will be consistent with the final rules adopted by PHMSA. This hesitancy is 

rooted in the perceived risk that the rules ultimately might compel 

repeating certain steps in the pipeline safety action plan. This is 

not insignificant. For example, testing pipelines for material 

strength is both costly and disruptive because pipelines need to be 

removed from operation to complete this testing. This do-over risk 

creates financial risk for pipeline operators and their customers, as 

well as the risk of more extensive operational disruptions that 

would be needed. This do-over risk should not be permitted to hold 

us back when we, as an industry and or regulators, should be moving forward. 

Our purpose here is to work collaboratively with PHMSA. Because the regulatory process indeed goes beyond what PHMSA can 

control, INGAA wishes to make the point that it is critical that 

these natural gas pipelines safety regulations be completed in a 

workable and timely manner. It is worth recalling that the title of 

the most recent law reauthorizing the Pipeline Safety Act makes 

76 

the point. It is the Pipeline Safety, Regulatory Certainty, and Job 

Creation Act of 2011. Regulatory certainty is necessary to move forward. 

INGAA supports the reauthorization of the Pipeline Safety Program during this Congress. My written statement includes some 

suggestions for the legislation, including providing some more definition for several key natural gas regulations. With further definition from Congress, we believe the proposed rules could be completed in a more timely manner, and the pipeline industry would 

have greater certainty about what future regulations would require. This would allow operators to start working towards those 

requirements now, as opposed to just waiting until a set of regulations is final at an unknown date. We continue to believe that a 

reauthorization bill, and the accountability and oversight that 

comes with it, will help to get PHMSA back on track for meeting 

the safety mandates required in 2011. I would be happy to discuss 

this and further suggestions. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and I am happy 

to answer any questions of the subcommittee. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Santa follows:] 

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Mr. WHITFIELD. Well, thanks very much, Mr. Santa. 

And our next witness is Mr. Ron Bradley, who is Vice President 

of Gas Operations for PECO Energy, and I think you are testifying 

on behalf of the American Gas Association. 

STATEMENT OF RON BRADLEY 

Mr. BRADLEY. Good afternoon, Chairman Whitfield, and members 

of the committee. My name is Ron Bradley, and I serve as the Vice 

President of Gas Operations at PECO, which provides reliable electric and natural gas customer—or service to more than 1.6 million 

electric customers, and more than 500,000 gas customers in southeastern Pennsylvania. I appreciate the opportunity to testify on behalf of the natural gas distribution industry. 

PECO is a part of the Exelon family of companies. Exelon is the 

Nation’s largest competitive energy provider. In addition to 

Exelon’s generation, power, and unregulated businesses, our sister 

utilities include BGE in Baltimore, and ComEd in Chicago. Combined, we serve 6.6 million electric customers in Illinois, Maryland, 

and Pennsylvania, and more than 1.1 million natural gas customers in Maryland and Pennsylvania. 

Today, I am testifying on behalf of the American Gas Association 

which represents more than 200 local distribution companies, also 

known as LDCs, which serve more than 71 million customers. 

AGA’s member companies operate 2.4 million miles of underground pipeline, safely delivering clean, affordable natural gas to 

residential, commercial, and industrial customers. LDCs provide 

the last critical link in the energy delivery chain, connecting interstate pipelines directly to homes and businesses. Our focus today 

is ensuring that we keep the gas flowing safely and reliably. 

As part of an agreement with the Federal Government, most 

states assume primary responsibility for safety regulation of LDCs, 

as well as intrastate transmission pipelines. Some governments are 

encouraged to adopt minimum standards promulgated by the U.S. 

Department of Transportation. Many states choose to adopt standards that are more stringent than federal requirements. Additionally, our companies are in close contact with state pipeline safety 

inspectors, working in a collaborative manner that provides for far 

more inspections than required under federal law. 

LDCs do not operate strictly in a compliance culture, but rather 

in a culture of proactive collaborative engagement. Each company 

employs trained safety professionals, provides ongoing employee 

evaluations and safety training, conducts rigorous system inspection, testing, maintenance, repair, and replacement programs, and 

educates the public on natural gas safety. AGA’s commitment to 

enhancing safety adopted in 2011 provides a summary statement 

of these commitments. The Association has also developed numerous pipeline safety initiatives focused on raising the bar on safety, 

including peer-to-peer reviews and best practice forums that share 

best practices, and lessons learned throughout the industry. 

Each year, LDCs spend approximately $19 billion on safety; one 

half of that on our voluntary activities. This number continues to 

escalate as work commences on newly approved accelerated pipeline replacement programs. 

85 

The Pipe Inspection, Protection, Enforcement, and Safety Act of 

2006, and the Pipeline Safety, Regulatory Certainty, and Job Creation Act of 2011, both outline several programs that help continue 

to improve the safety of the industry. AGA member companies 

have implemented aspects of these programs either through DOT 

regulation or voluntarily. However, many of these programs are in 

their infancy in terms of implementation, and we encourage Congress to allow these programs to develop and mature. In the case 

of the unanimously passed 2011 Act, we dealt with a number of 

key issues. Several of the required regulations have yet to be finalized. Progress is being made, however, and thus, we believe it 

would be premature to make changes to the law at this time. For 

instance, the industry is experiencing significant uncertainty regarding PHMSA implementation of maximum allowable operating 

pressure, and the integrity verification programs. We are prepared 

to act, but regulatory certainty provided by implementation of regulation would be beneficial to the industry and customers alike. 

Layering new laws and regulations onto companies before existing 

regulations have been finalized and given a reasonable amount of 

time to work is likely to create uncertainty that undermines our 

shared safety goals. PHMSA has issued a number of significant 

guidance documents, released the results of congressionally mandated study on leak detection, and created a database to track 

progress in replacing cast iron. 

With regard to replacement of cast iron, the quantity of these 

mains continues to steadily decline, making up less than 3 percent 

of total mileage. There are 29,358 miles of cast iron still in use, and 

the industry estimates it will cost $83 billion to complete that. 

We applaud the committee’s focus on the common goal to enhance the safe delivery of this vital energy resource, and I am 

pleased to answer questions on these topics and other topics you 

may have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bradley follows:] 

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Mr. WHITFIELD. Thank you, Mr. Bradley. 

And our next witness is Mr. Andy Black, who is the President 

and CEO of the Association of Oil Pipe Lines, and he had many 

productive years here at the Energy and Commerce Committee, 

and welcome back, Mr. Black, and you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF ANDREW BLACK 

Mr. ANDREW BLACK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members. I am 

Andy Black, President and CEO of the Association of Oil Pipe 

Lines. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Is the microphone on? 

Mr. ANDREW BLACK. Yes, sir. Can you hear me better? I am also 

testifying on behalf of API. 

We represent transmission pipeline operators that deliver crude 

oil, refined products like gasoline, diesel fuel, and jet fuel, and natural gas liquids such as propane. Our U.S. pipelines extend 

192,000 miles, safely delivering 14.9 billion barrels of crude oil and 

energy products a year. 

Pipelines play a critical role in delivering energy to American 

workers and families. Americans use the energy in our pipelines 

delivered in their cars and trucks to work or driving on the job. 

Farmers use propane for rural heating and crop drying. American 

workers use raw materials like ethane for their good-paying manufacturing jobs. 

Pipelines are an exceedingly safe way to deliver the energy 

America needs. The average barrel of crude oil or petroleum products reaches its destination safely, greater than 99.999 percent of 

the time. Since 1999, pipeline incidents impacting the public or environment are down 50 percent. Corrosion cost, pipeline incidents 

are down 76 percent thanks to the widespread use of smart inline 

inspection to detect corrosion in pipes. Pipeline incidents caused accidentally by third party damage are down 78 percent. But even 

with these improvements in pipeline safety over the last 15 years, 

we know today we need to keep improving pipeline safety further, 

and are committed to doing so. 

Last year, liquid pipeline operators spent more than $2.2 billion 

evaluating, inspecting, and maintaining their pipelines. The spending shows that we are expending a great amount of resources to 

make pipeline incidents even rarer. 

I would like to share with you a number of the industry-wide efforts we have underway to improve pipeline safety. Two years ago, 

liquid pipeline operators launched the Pipeline Safety Excellence 

Initiative. It includes shared pipeline safety principles, such as the 

goal of zero incidents. Pipeline Safety Excellence also embodies the 

work of nearly a dozen industry-wide groups to improve pipeline 

operations and safety. We are funding research and development 

on new and improved ILI smart pig technologies, developing new 

best practices to detect and respond to potential cracking in pipes, 

improving leak detection program management, and ensuring pipeline construction quality management. Strategic initiatives reflect 

review of safety performance data and lessons learned from pipeline incidents to make safety improvements. What results of the recent California release are not yet available of the investigation. 

104 

We look forward to understanding the root causes of that incident, 

and addressing any recommendations for safety improvement industry-wide. Strategic initiatives also reflect lessons from safety investigators and address the recommendations of the NTSB and 

advisories from PHMSA. One of our most recent safety successes 

that PHMSA Executive Director Cummings mentioned is a new 

tool to manage comprehensively and holistically all of the different 

pipeline safety activities across the company. API recommended 

practice 1173. The NTSB recommended we develop this best practice for pipeline safety management system after the 2010 Marshall, Michigan, pipeline release. 

We embraced NTSB’s recommendation and worked together with 

PHMSA, state regulators, natural gas pipeline operators, and process safety experts over a stretch of 2 years to reach an agreement 

on this important advance in pipeline safety. Over that time, we 

consulted with safety experts within other industries successfully 

using safety management systems to improve safety in their sectors. Our members are now planning aggressive implementation of 

this pipeline safety management system recommended practice because of the opportunity we have to improve pipeline safety industry-wide. 

Another success story is the work of our emergency response 

team. Local fire and police departments, especially volunteer departments in rural locations, told us they just didn’t have the resources to obtain pipeline-specific emergency response training. We 

responded to this need by bringing pipeline training to them free 

of charge through an online course. This and other pipeline emergency response tools can be reached through the Web site, 

Pipelineemergencyresponse.com. For these efforts, I will proudly 

travel later this month to Nashville in the annual meeting of the 

National Association of State Fire Marshals to receive their Norm 

Mineta Excellence in Transportation Safety Award, presented this 

year to API and AOPL jointly for the work of our emergency response team. This award is given annually to an individual or team 

that has made a significant and lasting contribution to the safety 

of people, products, and materials in transit. Through this award, 

state fire marshals recognize individuals and teams that have encouraged transportation safety standards above what is required, 

and have worked to ensure the safety of emergency responders. 

As you can see, there is much work underway to improve pipeline safety performance. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Andrew Black follows:] 

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Mr. WHITFIELD. Well, thank you, Mr. Black. 

And our next witness is Mr. Carl Weimer, who is the Executive 

Director of the Pipeline Safety Trust. Thanks for being with us, 

and you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF CARL WEIMER 

Mr. WEIMER. Good afternoon, Chairman Whitfield, and members 

of the committee. Thank you for inviting me to speak here today. 

The Pipeline Safety Trust came into being after a pipeline disaster that occurred in 1999. While prosecuting that incident, the 

U.S. Justice Department was so aghast at the way the pipeline 

company had operated and maintained their pipeline, and the lack 

of oversight from federal regulators, that they asked the federal 

courts to set aside money from the settlement of that case to create 

the Pipeline Safety Trust as a watchdog organization over both the 

industry and the regulators. We have been trying to fulfill that vision ever since. 

Reviewing the implementation of the 2011 Pipeline Safety Act is 

somewhat difficult because of the many required reports and 

changes to the regulations have yet to be produced. The slowness 

of the reporting and rulemaking process seems at odds with the 

public proclamations of concern and action from the Administration. While many are frustrated by this slow progress, it is difficult 

to know exactly where to lay the blame. PHMSA is partially to 

blame, since they have been slow to produce the required reports 

and regulation, but they have also been clear with Congress for a 

number of years now that they lack the resources needed to complete their mission in a timely manner. We also have noted that 

many times regulations and reports, once produced by PHMSA, get 

significantly delayed by the Secretary’s office itself, or by the White 

House’s Office of Information Regulatory Affairs. It would appear 

there is plenty of blame to be shared for the slowness in implementing many important pipeline safety initiatives. 

Even with the slowness and delay, progress has recently been 

made, as evidenced by the reduction in the number of pipeline failures that involve both injuries and death to all-time low levels. Unfortunately, at the same time that the number of failures that injure people has been decreasing, the number of significant failures 

that dump products into the environment and damage property is 

increasing, as dramatically shown by the recent spill of crude oil 

into the ocean near Santa Barbara, and the second spill in just a 

few years of crude oil into the Yellowstone River. This increase in 

the overall significant failure rate shows that while the focus today 

maybe on PHMSA, ultimately, the companies that own and operate 

these pipelines are the ones that need to be held responsible for 

their failures. 

PHMSA has in play a number of significant rulemakings that 

may very well address many of the key issues that were asked to 

address in the 2011 Act; expansion of integrity management, leak 

detection, automated shut-off valves, gas gathering lines, excess 

flow valves, depth of burial of stream crossings, and verification of 

maximum allowable operating pressure. We say these issues may 

be addressed because at this point we really don’t know. While 

PHMSA has started the rulemaking process for many of these 

117 

issues, for the most of these items no actual rule or proposed rule 

has been produced. 

Some of these efforts started well over 4 years ago, and the exact 

nature of the hold-up is unclear. We ask that you help break this 

logjam of delay, and if that is not possible, Congress should include 

these specific rules in the statute as part of the upcoming reauthorization. 

Congress also asked for non-rulemaking studies and actions in 

the 2011 Act, which also have not been accomplished. The areas we 

are most concerned with include the available—availability of 

meaningful facility response plans, maps of high consequence 

areas, a study of the sufficiency of regulations for transport of diluted bitumen, report on excavation damage, and an NTSB-requested audit of the Integrity Management Program. 

The report of gathering lines was recently submitted, but the 

gathering line issue is of particular importance to us since we see 

thousands of new miles of gas gathering lines going into the ground 

every year, with the majority of them being completely unregulated. 

With the large increase in new pipeline infrastructure in some 

parts of the country, the aging infrastructure in need of replacement in other areas, and increased complexity of risk-based regulations, we were happy to see Congress provide a significant increase 

in PHMSA’s budget for fiscal year 2015. This budget increase will 

allow PHMSA to add an additional 100-plus new positions, targeted inspections and enforcement, as well as more adequately 

compensating the states for their pipeline safety programs. It is 

now your job to ensure that PHMSA effectively expands and manages this increased workforce in ways that help decrease the recent 

uptick in significant pipeline safety failures. 

As reauthorization of the National Pipeline Safety Program begins later this year, we would support a straight reauthorization of 

the current program to allow PHMSA to finally produce all the 

rules and reports previously requested, and address the long list of 

recommendations from the NTSB. For such a straight reauthorization to be successful, Congress needs to remain actively involved in 

oversight to ensure the Administration is doing the things they 

have been charged with. 

Thank you again for letting me testify today. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Weimer follows:] 

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Mr. WHITFIELD. Well, thank you. 

And at this time, I would like to introduce Mrs. Capps to introduce our final witness. 

Mrs. CAPPS. Mr. Chairman, thank you for giving me this privilege. And it is an honor to welcome you to our panel and to our 

discussion today Dianne Black, who is Assistant Director of Planning and Development for the County of Santa Barbara. And I 

know that she has worked for the county for 30 years, and in that 

time, has had a lot to do with various regulations having to do with 

pipeline safety, and in her current role she has been in the middle 

of all the spill recovery and response efforts, as well as pipeline 

safety having to do with our most recent incident on the Gaviota 

Coast. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Well, thank you. And you are recognized for 5 

minutes, Ms. Black. 

STATEMENT OF DIANNE BLACK 

Ms. DIANNE BLACK. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman 

Whitfield, and other members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me to testify today. My name is Dianne Black, I am the Assistant Director of the Planning and Development Department for 

the County of Santa Barbara in California. 

I have been involved in the emergency response, permitting, and 

recovery for the Refugio oil spill, which was the result of a ruptured pipeline onshore in our county. I have overseen the permitting of oil and gas facilities in the county for nearly 20 years, and 

I have been involved in other oil spill responses, including the 

Torch oil spill from Platform Irene in 1997. I appreciate being here 

to share the experiences of Santa Barbara County in the review 

and permitting of oil and gas projects and associated pipelines. 

Now the disclaimer. Within the Refugio oil spill response, I may 

be a decision-maker again for either emergency permits or other 

types of permits, and if that occurs, I will need to approach each 

permit application on a case-by-case basis. As a practical matter, 

that means that today I can provide you with general information, 

but I can’t discuss how I might act on an application without reviewing it and reviewing the public comment associated with it. 

With respect to the pipeline in Santa Barbara County that recently failed, the County of Santa Barbara entered into a settlement agreement with Celeron Pipeline Company in 1988 concerning the presumption that the county is preempted by federal 

law from regulating the design and operation of that pipeline. That 

precluded the county from inspecting operations by, and most permitting of, what is now known as the Plains All American Pipeline, 

the line central to the Refugio spill. 

For the past decade or more, the county has not—to oil company 

applicants, the construction and safety systems required for inter 

and intrastate pipelines. Instead, subsequent to changes in federal 

law in 2002, the county has evaluated oil and gas projects, including associated pipeline systems, in their entirety as is required 

under the California Environmental Quality Act. The Federal Pipeline Safety Improvement Act of 2002 does not preempt local jurisdictions in California from their obligations under CEQA. 

139 

Working with oil company applicants, this has resulted in oil 

companies in Santa Barbara County routinely including state-ofthe-art leak detection and spill prevention technology, including 

automatic shut-off systems in their project descriptions, which are 

then analyzed under CEQA. Pipeline systems which include automatic shut-off systems minimize the potential impacts from oil 

spills, including biological hazardous materials and risk, air quality, and recreational impacts. 

Within the CEQA process, the County of Santa Barbara does not 

dictate what equipment oil companies must use in their pipelines 

in order to minimize impacts from oil spills. Rather, it is the oil 

companies themselves, through their own engineers, who determine what technology to build into pipeline projects in order to 

minimize impacts from spills. Automatic shut-off systems rely on 

pipeline sensors which detected changes in the pressure and flow, 

which indicate when there may be a problem in the pipeline. When 

pressure or flow anomalies are detected, the system automatically 

shuts down the pumps and valves associated with the pipeline to 

limit the potential release of oil. Automatic shut-off systems are 

distinguished from remotely-operated systems by the fact that 

automatic shut-off systems do not require human action, decisionmaking, or intervention to shut down the pipeline system. In other 

words, there are preset parameters which, if triggered, result in 

the pipeline system being automatically shut down without any 

human action. To be clear, the Plains All American Pipelines, both 

901 and—which was the subject of this spill, and 903, to which it 

connects, do not have automatic shut-off systems. With the exception of the Plains pipelines, all of the major transmission pipelines 

in the county are equipped with automatic shut-off systems. These 

include all the pipelines that transport oil and gas from the offshore platforms to facilities in Santa Barbara County, and you can 

see those on the map that I provided for the record. 

Additional pipelines within the county that are equipped with 

automatic shut-off systems include—the map that is on the screen, 

include line 96, which transports oil from the Ellwood Onshore Facility to Las Flores Canyon. Line 300, the onshore length of the 

pipeline from Platform Irene to the Lompoc Oil and Gas plant, and 

on to the Santa Maria Refinery. The Sisquoc Pump Station, which 

transports oil from the Sisquoc Pump Station to the Santa Maria 

Pump Station, and a permitted but not yet constructed pipeline in 

northern Santa Barbara County. Again, all of these automatic 

shut-off systems were incorporated into the project description for 

individual projects by oil company applicants prior to environmental review. 

That concludes my prepared comments, and I would be happy to 

answer questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Dianne Black follows:] 

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Mr. WHITFIELD. Well, thank you, Ms. Black. And thank all of you 

for your statements. 

And I will recognize myself for 5 minutes of questions. Ms. Black, 

before you came today and listened to the testimony of Ms. 

Cummings, were you aware that 16 of the 42 safety standards in 

the 2011 bill had not had final regulations issued? Were you aware 

of that before? 

Ms. DIANNE BLACK. Mr. Chair, I was aware, but only most recently had I become aware of that. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Because of this bill, all right. 

Ms. DIANNE BLACK. Right. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Well, do any of you have any conclusions yourself as to why PHMSA has been not able to complete these safety 

standards? OK. All right. 

Mr. Wise, on gathering lines, I know MSHA does not require regulations of of gathering lines, but some states have decided to regulate those. Has Georgia taken action on that or—— 

Mr. WISE. No, sir, because for the most part, we are not the beneficiary of the opportunity to have gathering lines. We are—— 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Right. 

Mr. WISE. We are not a fracking state. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Yes. 

Mr. WISE. But we do think it is important. And again, as I said 

in my summary, that it is about safety or efficiency or both, and 

that if you are going to have pipeline safety, that it is important 

that gathering lines could and should be included in the states 

choose to enact that level of regulation. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Yes. Mr. Santa, do you or Mr. Bradley or Mr. 

Black have any comments on gathering lines in general? 

Mr. SANTA. Mr. Chairman, many of our associate operators— 

INGAA represents the operators of natural gas transmission pipelines, in particular interstate transmission pipelines. We do not 

represent the gathering segment of the industry, so probably that 

question is best directed to those who represent or are in that segment. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. OK. Do you have any additional comments you 

would like to make about it, Mr. Black? 

Mr. ANDREW BLACK. Well, oil gathering lines are regulated to 

some extent by PHMSA if they are in a non-rural setting, if they 

cross an environment, an unusually sensitive area, or exceed a certain diameter. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Yes. 

Mr. ANDREW BLACK. So more liquid is gathering regulations. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Do any of you have any idea what percent of all 

the pipelines in America have these automatic shut-off valves in 

them? Does anybody have any idea on that? OK. Do you, Mr. 

Weimer, have any ideas on that? OK. 

They are not required, and I know that MSHA has conducted a 

study on this, and I guess as a layman you would think that this 

would be of benefit, but I keep hearing from technical people that 

it is not always a benefit. Would anyone have a comment on that? 

Yes, Mr. Black. 

Mr. ANDREW BLACK. Liquid pipeline operators recommend and 

widely use automated remotely operated shut-off valves so that a 

147 

trained control room operator can deploy that valve as part of a 

controlled shut-down of a pipeline. Long-haul, high pressure, liquid 

pipeline operators generally do not use automatic shut-off valves 

and don’t recommend it because of the pressure surge that can be 

created from a quick shut-off of an automatic valve that is not part 

of a planned shutdown. 

We have analyzed and found nine releases in the past that are 

because of conditions similar to an automatic shut-off valve shutting. Found one rupture that put 4,000 barrels of refined products 

out on the right-of-way, that was caused because of conditions like 

automatic shut-off valves. So in liquids, long-haul, high pressure 

pipelines, automatic shut-off valves are not recommended. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Now, corrosion of pipelines is a major concern, 

correct? And it is my understanding that in different geographical 

areas, there are different amounts of corrosion. Is that true or is 

that not true? 

Mr. SANTA. Yes, Mr. Chairman, that is true because a lot of it 

has to do with the environment—— 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Yes. 

Mr. SANTA [continuing]. In which the pipeline is located, the soil, 

things of that nature. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. And I have heard that in the Santa Barbara 

area that that is prone to a lot of corrosion there. Would anybody 

be able to confirm that or not? OK. 

OK, now, would you agree—all of you would agree that pipelines 

still is the safest way to transport this material. Is everybody in 

agreement with that? 

Mr. WISE. Yes, sir. And clearly, and as I have directed in our 

state, that we have had an aggressive replacement of bare steel 

and cast iron, and so where we had a very safe program to begin 

with, it is even safer today. And the One-Call Program has made 

it continue to be safer. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. OK. 

Mr. WISE. But it is an extraordinary delivery process. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Right. 

OK, Mrs. Capps, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. CAPPS. Thank you. I want to thank all the witnesses for 

being here today and for your testimony, and particularly, of 

course, my constituent coming all the way from California, and the 

fact that she testified in the state panel just last week on this 

topic. And in the wake of the Plains oil spill on May 19 on our 

shoreline, there has been a lot of discussion about the fact that the 

Plains All American—we have touched on it already, the Plains All 

American Pipeline is not equipped with an automatic shut-off system. And when questioned about this, that particular company 

echoed the longstanding industry position that such systems are 

not feasible for oil pipelines, yet Santa Barbara County has demonstrated this claim is not true. 

So, Ms. Black, you explained in your testimony that there are 

numerous pipelines in Santa Barbara County that employ automatic shut-off systems and state-of-the-art leak detection technologies. Would you describe a few of the projects currently using 

these advanced safety systems in our county? 

148 

Ms. DIANNE BLACK. I went over those very briefly in my testimony, but I will—— 

Mrs. CAPPS. I know—— 

Ms. DIANNE BLACK [continuing]. Repeat it—— 

Mrs. CAPPS [continuing]. But—— 

Ms. DIANNE BLACK. I will repeat it a bit more slowly and emphasize that when I talk about automatic shut-off systems, I really 

mean the whole system. So I have heard the testimony from oil 

company representatives that they feel it is not the best practice, 

and that there is some risk involved. That has not been our experience. We have looked at them as a system where the pump is shut 

off and then valves are shut off sequentially. So I think we really 

have to talk about it as a system rather than valves. 

So in Santa Barbara County, in addition to the pipelines that 

come from the platforms and have shut-off systems, we have several pipelines, most recently line 96, which is associated with the 

Venoco’s Platform Holly, transports oil from the Ellwood Onshore 

Facility to Las Flores Canyon, and then ties into the Plains All 

American Pipeline. That has an automatic shut-off system. Line 

300, which is the onshore length of pipeline from Platform Irene to 

the Lompoc Oil and Gas Plant, and then on to the Santa Maria Refinery—— 

Mrs. CAPPS. Yes. 

Ms. DIANNE BLACK [continuing]. Has an automatic shut-off system. The Sisquoc Pipeline which transports oil from the Sisquoc 

Pump Station to the Santa Maria Pump Station, so pretty much 

onshore oil, also has an automatic shut-off system. And then we 

most recently permitted the Foxen Petroleum Pipeline, which was 

permitted with an automatic shut-off system. 

Mrs. CAPPS. And I would like to ask for these to be submitted 

for the record, Mr. Chairman. And just to follow up briefly, has the 

use of any of these advanced systems caused any secondary ruptures or other serious problems in the county? 

Ms. DIANNE BLACK. No, not in our entire history with them. 

Mrs. CAPPS. OK. And oil development continues to thrive in the 

area, am I correct on that? 

Ms. DIANNE BLACK. It does, as you can see from the map, although offshore oil has somewhat declined—— 

Mrs. CAPPS. Right. 

Ms. DIANNE BLACK [continuing]. Because of resources. 

Mrs. CAPPS. And no pipeline operators have gone bankrupt due 

to the cost of installing these systems, to your knowledge? 

Ms. DIANNE BLACK. No. 

Mrs. CAPPS. OK. There has also been some confusion regarding 

the definition of the term automatic. Plains and other companies 

often refer to their systems as automatic, even though a human operator must still decide to activate. That was the case with Plains. 

To clarify, the automatic shut-off system installed in Santa Barbara County, the ones you were describing, require no human 

intervention, is that correct—— 

Ms. DIANNE BLACK. That—— 

Mrs. CAPPS [continuing]. Just to be clear? 

Ms. DIANNE BLACK. That is correct. 

149 

Mrs. CAPPS. And can you briefly explain how these advanced systems work compared to those on the ruptured Plains pipeline? Why 

are they so much more effective at detecting and stopping spills? 

Ms. DIANNE BLACK. They are more effective because they don’t 

require human interaction or intervention. They shut off based 

upon preset parameters, so an operator isn’t having to make a decision that—— 

Mrs. CAPPS. All right. 

Ms. DIANNE BLACK [continuing]. An actual parameter has been 

reached. 

Mrs. CAPPS. Now, here is the other thing, and maybe this goes 

to CEQA too, our local program. While the local companies technically voluntarily install the more advanced systems, it is clear 

that the law, both state and federal, have played an important role. 

Can you elaborate on this—it sets the standard and everybody kind 

of gets onboard just because of the consequences of not doing so. 

So there is a self regulatory agency as well. What is the policy 

mechanism that pushed these companies to proactively include the 

state-of-the-art technologies in their project? 

Ms. DIANNE BLACK. Well, the California Environmental Quality 

Act is a very powerful tool in California. The County of Santa Barbara reviews the whole of every project, whether it is something 

that is under our direct jurisdiction or not, we review it. And so 

pipeline companies in Santa Barbara County include in their 

project descriptions automatic shut-off systems to mitigate upfront 

the impacts of a potential spill. 

Mrs. CAPPS. I have used up my time, Mr. Chairman. Thank you 

very much. 

Mr. LATTA [presiding]. The gentlelady’s time has expired and she 

yields back. 

And I would also like to thank our panel today for being here. 

It has been very informational. 

Mr. Wise, I think you were here for the testimony when Ms. 

Cummings was testifying, and she noted that there are issues with 

getting information from the states in a cost-effective way. Would 

you speak to the data you worked to provide to PHMSA? 

Mr. WISE. I am sorry, sir? 

Mr. LATTA. Ms. Cummings noted that there are issues with getting information from the states and getting that information in a 

cost-effective way. Would you be able to speak to the data that you 

worked to help provide to PHMSA in their mapping and everything 

else? 

Mr. WISE. In my role as a commissioner, it is a state commission, 

we believe that our office of pipeline safety is extraordinary, and 

they do a great job of getting the information that is requested. 

And when there is an issue, PHMSA relates it to our staff and then 

we respond very quickly to that. And so I don’t—I believe that we 

have a good working relationship, that they acknowledge the role 

that we played in Georgia to have a very safe delivery system, and 

I would be surprised to hear that, at least in my state, and haven’t 

heard it from the other states, that there is a problem with information coming from the state commissions. 

Mr. LATTA. Let me ask, also in your testimony that—you said 

that PHMSA has not updated the National Pipeline Mapping SysVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:39 Feb 29, 2016 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00155 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 114\114-67 CHRIS
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tem including the identification of the high consequence areas. 

Could you go into that and the high consequence areas, and maybe 

what should be done? 

Mr. WISE. Well, again, there is going to be the high deliverability, and it is an issue that clearly is important to the states and 

the regulators, and I think it was a question that was asked of one 

of the representatives—the members today about releasing that information to the public, and we are not knowledgeable of some of 

this mapping to this point, and believe it should be released. 

Mr. LATTA. Well, thank you. 

Mr. Black, how do pipeline operators use the inline inspection of 

so-called smart pig technology to find problems in the pipelines? 

Mr. ANDREW BLACK. Yes, the smart pig device travels inside of 

the pipeline, gathering information about the pipeline as it goes. It 

uses technology to detect wall thickness, and different technologies 

to determine potential cracks. And then the information that is 

provided from the onboard computer that has traveled through the 

pipeline is reviewed. That is raw data, it is terabytes of it, that 

third party experts, as Director Cummings said, then review and 

they determine whether the information that has been provided is 

just about the natural features of the pipe or is about something 

that an operator needs to consider addressing. And importantly 

also, the smart pig vendor and the pipeline company will uncover 

a section of the pipeline that has been tested and review the results of the inline inspection to field inspections to calibrate the accuracy of the pig. This has succeeded in reducing corrosion-caused 

incidents by more than 76 percent over the last 15 percent. And 

corrosion was really the reason for modern integrity management 

and the advent of this inline inspection technology. It has been 

proven successful. Got a lot of R&D right now to improve the ability of the machines to sense more, and then the analytics of the 

people to determine what the machines are telling us. 

Mr. LATTA. Thank you. 

Mr. Santa, could you talk more about the 9-point pipeline safety 

action plan you mentioned, and what INGAA has done to educate 

the public about the safety measures that are undertaken with 

pipeline projects? 

Mr. SANTA. Yes, sir. In the wake of the San Bruno tragedy in 

2010, the INGAA Board committed to a set of voluntary commitments to improve pipeline safety. As I said in my testimony, it was 

anchored in the goal of zero incidents as the goal. That 9-nine program includes many of the elements that were addressed in the 

2011 pipeline safety reauthorization, as well as some of the relevant NTSB recommendations. I won’t go through all of the 9 

points. Two of them to point out is a commitment to expand the 

use of integrity management, the—consequence areas. Another one 

is to perform the testing of pipe where it is necessary to verify the 

material strength of that pipe. We have engaged in an extensive 

outreach with pipeline safety stakeholders to keep them abreast of 

the progress that we are making there. Pipeline companies as part 

of their outreach to the public along their corridors communicate 

this, and also in connection with new pipeline projects, part of the 

outreach to the public includes addressing the safety of these systems. 

151 

Mr. LATTA. Well, thank you very much. 

And I am going to yield back, and recognize the gentleman from 

California for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank the panel. Very informative. I only have 5 minutes of questions, so I am a little disappointed. 

Mr. Cummings, I am going to start with you. I asked—I mean 

Mr. Weimer. I asked Ms. Cummings to describe the rulemaking 

process. Her answer was very roundabout, very hard to understand. Is it a transparent process and is there a good deal of room 

for improvement in that process? 

Mr. WEIMER. Yes, we think there is a good deal of room for improvement. Parts of it are transparent when they do the advance 

notice of proposed rulemaking, and the notice of proposed rulemaking. It opens it up for public comments, and all those public 

comments are transparent. Where it kind of disappears from that 

transparency is in the interim. Like on the liquid rule that was 

drafted almost 5 years ago, they went through an advanced notice 

of proposed rulemaking, took lots of public comments, supposedly 

went back and then wrote a proposed rule, and then it disappeared 

into the black box somewhere between the Secretary’s office and 

the White House. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Yes. 

Mr. WEIMER. And that part of the process of where that is and 

why it has taken so long is, I think, why everybody up here has 

been frustrated. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. And the agency wouldn’t have any control over 

that. 

Mr. WEIMER. Well, I think once PHMSA writes the rule and 

sends it up, it’s over their head. So it is above their pay grade at 

that point. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Well, you mentioned that Congress should expedite the rulemaking or write rules into the legislation. Now, in my 

opinion, that would open up a lot of opportunity for legal action, 

for law suits. Wouldn’t that be the case? 

Mr. WEIMER. Well, I think it is probably wise that you are not 

pipeline engineers and experts that—so drafting rules might not be 

the best for Congress, but there are instances where that has been 

very successful. In the 2006 Act, you put a rule right in there for 

excess flow valves that led to millions of excess flow valves being 

put on the new houses being constructed around the country that 

the NTSB says has saved lives. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Yes. 

Mr. WEIMER. And so there are a few instances where specific 

rules that are pretty well clarified can be put right into the statute. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Well, thank you. Well, we are seeing an abundance of natural gas production now in this country, do we have 

the capacity to manage that safely with minimum leakage and 

minimum opportunity for accidents? 

Mr. WEIMER. Well, I think it is a good step forward. The new 

budget that PHMSA was given to hire more inspectors and enforcement folks, and to help support the states in that too. I think the 

piece that is missing is the gathering lines that has been talked 

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lines in this country, she isn’t including the 2 or 300,000 miles of 

gathering lines that are completely unregulated—— 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Yes. 

Mr. WEIMER [continuing]. In most all states. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. OK, thank you. 

Mr. Black, I am going to follow up on the smart pig question. Do 

you think that is the best technology that is out there for inspecting pipes? 

Mr. ANDREW BLACK. Of the methods of conducting integrity management, we have found inline inspection or smart pigs to be the 

best. So now the research projects are about how to make those 

pigs more capable, and to improve our capability to process that information. We find the hydrostatic pressure testing to be very helpful when commissioning a new pipeline, for understanding if it is 

ready for operation. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Is there any technology out there that you think 

is going to make it easier or cheaper to conduct testing? 

Mr. ANDREW BLACK. Well, it is not getting cheaper to use these. 

The pigs are getting more specialized. Whereas there used to be 

one type of pig that did one type of data gathering, now operators 

are using multiple types of—— 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Yes. 

Mr. ANDREW BLACK [continuing]. Technologies. That means multiple types of inspections or several in the same train with—inside 

a pipe. That is where technology is growing, and we are spending 

a lot of money on research and development and a consortia to try 

to improve that record further and drive down the number of incidents. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. OK. Mr. Santa, you mentioned that there is a 

need for consistency between voluntary actions and rules. How do 

you find the cooperation between the agency and the private sector? 

Mr. SANTA. Mr. McNerney, as I mentioned in my testimony, 

INGAA and its members have engaged with PHMSA and other 

stakeholders following the 2011 reauthorization, and we found that 

to be a good and productive process, and we believe that our input 

will be reflected in the rules when they are proposed. By the same 

token, we need that certainty that comes with those proposed rules, 

and also as I noted, given the delays that have occurred and that 

may well continue, getting some items addressed in the reauthorization we think would be constructive. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. I just want to say, Mr. Wise, I detected a lot of 

frustration in your testimony about unpublished information that 

is out there, the delays, and I know you don’t have time to answer 

on my 5 minutes, but I certainly appreciate your comments. 

Mr. WISE. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. At this time, recognize the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Griffith, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Thank you all very much for being here. 

I asked the earlier panel about collocation and if they knew of 

any safety concerns with locating within the same easement, and 

I will open that up to any of you all. Do you all know of any safety 

concerns, mainly talking about natural gas? Two pipelines, one in 

153 

my district, one in just outside of my district, are being built in Virginia, are being proposed in Virginia as we speak. Anybody know 

why they can’t collocate with other gas pipelines or in the same 

easement footprint? Any safety reasons anybody knows about? Mr. 

Bradley? 

Mr. BRADLEY. Yes, I will take a shot at answering from the perspective of the natural gas distribution companies. We are in the 

streets with the water departments, with the sewer departments, 

and many times our infrastructure went in the same time. So you 

pick a year, 1950, 1940, so we are back together. We try to go in 

together to make sure that we minimize the impact on the town, 

the neighborhood, and we keep costs down by sharing some of the 

restoration, repave kind of costs. With that being said, it is still important for us to make sure that there is some separation that is 

acceptable between the infrastructure. 

So we try to leverage the proximity in local build-up communities, and we do go in, not in the same trench but in the same 

street, we just keep the right separation. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Anybody 

else want to—— 

Mr. SANTA. I mean there are instances where natural gas transmission pipelines are collocated with other infrastructure, for example, sometimes the same corridors as electric transmission lines. 

There are issues there that need to be addressed in terms of the 

cathodic protection of the pipelines and things of that nature. So 

one needs to be mindful of that. But I think pipeline operators look 

for opportunities to use corridors that already have been used to 

avoid the disruption and the effects on the communities and the 

environment. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. And assuming that there isn’t a safety concern, 

that would be a wise path, would it not? 

Mr. SANTA. For purposes of minimizing disruption, it would be, 

yes. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Absolutely. Appreciate that very much. 

Mr. Bradley, do local distribution companies pay user fees for the 

transmission lines? 

Mr. BRADLEY. By way of paying for the transmission service, we 

do—— 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Yes, sir. 

Mr. BRADLEY [continuing]. Pay user fees indirectly. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. All right. 

Mr. BRADLEY. Yes. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. And you mentioned in your testimony that there 

are several regulations that have just been implemented and need 

time to work before assessing whether additional changes need to 

be made to enhance safety. Can you tell me what some of those 

regulations are? 

Mr. BRADLEY. Could you say that again? 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Yes, sir. You said in your testimony there are several regulations that have recently or just been implemented and 

need time to work before assessing whether additional changes 

need to be made to enhance safety. 

Mr. BRADLEY. Yes, thank you. So we are watching the regulations around construction. There is a regulation that was just reVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:39 Feb 29, 2016 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00159 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 114\114-67 CHRIS
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leased around construction around new infrastructure. So, for example, there is a lot of gas main being installed. There is a drive 

for it, not only from a safety perspective, but from a brand new 

service to customers perspective. And in doing that, a number of 

our local distribution companies just aren’t staffed for it, so we contract the work out. We want to make sure that the contractors are 

qualified effectively to do the work. There is a ruling out that we 

are reviewing right now that speaks to that. We want to make sure 

that it is going to hit the need that is required for this. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. All right. And can you tell me how data is gathered and shared among the industry over time that might be used 

to enhance regulations in the future—— 

Mr. BRADLEY. Yes. 

Mr. GRIFFITH [continuing]. Or help us figure out what we ought 

to do? 

Mr. BRADLEY. HEA member companies are involved in a number 

of activities that support that, so we meet frequently for best practice reviews. We like to check in with each other to figure out who 

is doing whatever it is best. We look at benchmark data, we see 

who has that figured out, whether it is OSHA recordables, whether 

it is pipeline incidents, we bring people in to meet. One of the big 

issues that you have heard about is underground damages. So we 

want to understand the best performer relative to hits per 1,000 

ticket calls. We want to bring those in and talk to them. We do 

that frequently at the American Gas Association. In addition, we 

do peer reviews—peer-to-peer reviews with our companies. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Well, I do appreciate that. 

I do have another safety question one of my constituents has 

asked, because we are dealing with these pipeline issues, and particularly large natural gas pipelines. Right now, they are being told 

it is safe to drive over them when they put them in the ground. 

They are being told they can drive over it. Does anybody know of 

any reason why that would be a problem, because a lot of my folks 

are going to harvest timber once every 35 to 50 years. Would that 

be a problem for a timber truck to drive over one of these, or a fully 

loaded cattle truck? 

Mr. SANTA. Mr. Griffith, I think those kind of issues would be addressed in the design of the pipeline, and there is a very extensive 

review of that that occurs at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and also as part of that there is the application of the 

PHMSA pipeline safety rules during that process. So I do not think 

there is any reason for undue concern about that. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. All right. I appreciate it very much. And I yield 

back. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. The gentleman yields back. 

At this time, recognize the gentleman from New York, Mr. 

Tonko, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. Weimer, your testimony points to a recent National Transportation Safety Board report on the integrity management of gas 

transmission pipelines in high consequence areas. You list seven 

areas that the NTSB identified for improvement in these system 

requirements. Has PHMSA acted on any of these recommendations 

at this point? 

155 

Mr. WEIMER. No, I—they are fairly new regulations and PHMSA 

hasn’t acted on them. It is another one of those things that may 

be in some of the regulations they are working on. There was a lot 

of discussion as part of the advanced notice of proposed rulemaking 

on both the liquid and the gas side about strengthening some of the 

integrity management rules. So some of those things may be acted 

on, but they haven’t been acted on yet. 

Mr. TONKO. Thank you. And there are several major natural gas 

pipeline projects, either proposed or underway, that will pass 

through my given congressional district. These projects are quite 

unpopular in the communities that will be hosting them. And my 

constituents have raised a number of concerns about these projects, 

including the safety of the pipelines and the associated facilities. 

Compression stations, as an example. Also because these projects 

will pass through small communities, my concern is that they do 

not come under the high consequence area designation. For anyone 

impacted by an accident, there is no such thing as a low consequence area. And it sounds as if the Integrity Management Program isn’t achieving the additional safety we would all like to see. 

So what standards, materials, and technologies are available to 

ensure greater safety of pipelines and their associated facilities? 

Mr. WEIMER. Well, I think the Integrity Management Program 

has achieved some of the things that it was set out to do, and the 

recent NTSB study that I had mentioned paints that picture, that 

for some time dependent flaws like corrosion, it has been pretty 

successful, and NTSB says that in those rural areas that are not 

currently covered under integrity management or those high consequence areas, expansion of those types of technologies into those 

areas would help. The problem they saw was that companies aren’t 

really integrating other types of risks into their integrity management very well. It has helped with some things, but not across the 

board. 

Mr. TONKO. Yes. And your testimony indicates that significant 

incidents are increasing on pipelines in high consequence areas, 

and apparently, excavation is one of the main causes of significant 

pipeline incidents. So I gathered from Mr. Cummings’ response to 

my question to her about—or Ms. Cummings’ response to my question to her about whether PHMSA has accurate and complete maps 

of pipeline locations, that the answer is no. 

Mr. WEIMER. Yes, and that is one of the rules they are working 

on, strengthening that National Pipeline Mapping System. The current plus or minus factor on a lot of that maps is plus or minus 

500 feet. So the pipeline could be, you know, on the other side of 

the road or a different side of the neighborhood than where—— 

Mr. TONKO. And—— 

Mr. WEIMER [continuing]. It shows on their maps. 

Mr. TONKO. And to the impacted communities, that is a relevant 

situation. 

Mr. WEIMER. Right, and—— 

Mr. TONKO. Yes. 

Mr. WEIMER. But the one thing to mention is that those maps 

should never be used for excavation. You know, if you really are 

going to go in and dig, you need to call 811 to get a really accurate 

location of where the pipeline is. 

156 

Mr. TONKO. And I think it is easy to calculate that the efforts 

of PHMSA to communicate with local authorities about how to 

avoid excavation damage is handicapped by that lack of information. Frankly, this is shocking. At a minimum, we should know the 

location of the existing networks. Would this information help to 

avoid the problems we are seeing with excavation damage to pipelines? 

Mr. WEIMER. Well, I think more accurate maps would help give 

people an idea of where the pipelines are in their area but really 

the way to get at the excavation damage is just for everybody to 

really understand that 811, Call Before You Dig. That is the accurate system that is going to really keep—— 

Mr. TONKO. And is it a resource problem when it comes to accurate mapping, or are there other barriers that face us in obtaining 

or organizing this information? 

Mr. WEIMER. Yes, I think to some degree it is a resource problem. I have heard the industry talk about how expensive it would 

be to go out and GIS their pipelines to more accurate—lots of companies have already done that, but other companies haven’t. 

Mr. TONKO. Did the states do a better job? 

Mr. WEIMER. The states—this is really a federal regulation of the 

NPS mapping, so it falls on PHMSA. 

Mr. TONKO. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Chairman, I see I have exhausted my time. I yield back. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Thank you, Mr. Tonko. 

We were waiting for Mr. Green, who I was told was on his way. 

Mr. Weimer, one other question I would just like to ask you, you 

had mentioned in your opening statement that the public—the 

Pipeline Safety Trust was funded originally through the Department of Justice in a court case. I was curious, your funding today, 

is that through private donations or how is that done today? 

Mr. WEIMER. Well, luckily, the Board members of the Pipeline 

Safety Trust, who were the families originally that had lost their 

children in that explosion, invested that money very wisely, so we 

received $4 million from the Justice Department to create the 

trust. I think we have $4.4 million of it today, so a large degree 

we live off that wise investment, and we also do get some grants, 

and we run an annual national conference that brings in some 

money also. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Excellent. OK, thanks. 

Mr. Green has appeared. So at this time, I would like to recognize the gentleman from Texas for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Commissioner Wise, PHMSA has not published any information 

pertaining to valves, integrity management, or leak detection. Can 

you explain what steps the Georgia Public Service Commission can 

and has taken to address these issues without PHMSA action? 

Mr. WISE. We are very interested both in my state and the National Association on this information. We think it is vital to understand the impact and a potential rate structure impact on the 

LDCs, and the customers that pay their bills. 

Mr. GREEN. Yes. OK. In your testimony you mentioned gathering 

lines. Can you explain your position on the issue of what PHMSA 

needs to do to fulfill its responsibilities? 

157 

Mr. WISE. We believe the review should be left to the individual 

states as to the level of scrutiny and inspection of gathering lines. 

PHMSA should respond to that request. Georgia is not going to be 

one, we don’t have gathering lines, but I think a number of states, 

for safety and integrity of the system, we should have some level 

of review. 

Mr. GREEN. OK. Obviously, in Texas we have no shortage of 

gathering lines. 

Mr. Weimer, it seems that PHMSA is focused on public awareness but hasn’t accomplished much by way of regulation. It seems 

that the industry has done quite a bit to address pipeline safety 

even without PHMSA. What are your thoughts on the industry actions? 

Mr. WEIMER. Yes, public awareness has been a hard nut to crack 

and the industry has spent tens of millions of dollars on it. There 

are regulations that require the industry to reach out to a variety 

of stakeholders, the public, local public officials, or emergency responders, but there is no requirement on the other end that the 

local governments pay attention. So to some degree, the industry 

has been pushing out a lot of information, but it is falling in the 

hands of people that are way too busy already and it is not being 

paid attention to enough. Somehow, we need to learn to message 

better to all those local governments so they pay attention instead 

of waiting until something happens, like in Santa Barbara, and 

then all of a sudden they are paying lots of attention. 

Mr. GREEN. Well, it is frustrating though because I think I have 

been on the committee for about three or four pipeline reauthorizations, and this is, say, 4 years from when we last did it and they 

still haven’t gotten most of the requirements that we wanted done 

in 2011. Do you think that two additional years would provide 

PHMSA the appropriate amount to finalize these outstanding policies? 

Mr. WEIMER. I think it would provide them enough time to get 

most of that done. It sounds like a lot of the new rules are about 

to roll out. Once the rule comes out, there is going to be another 

year for the public—for all the stakeholders to comment and for 

them to redraft the rule, so we are not going to really know what 

is and isn’t in these rules for a couple of years, one way or another 

at this point. 

Mr. GREEN. Yes. Mr. Santa, in your testimony you discuss the 

PHMSA user fee. What benefits would increased assessments provide? 

Mr. SANTA. Mr. Green, the user fee offsets the cost of the 

PHMSA Program and also is the source of a lot of the funds that 

PHMSA provides to the states in the form of state grants. 

Mr. GREEN. Yes. 

Mr. SANTA. And I know that Mr. Wise in his testimony on behalf 

of NARUC made the case for even more funding there. I think the 

point raised by INGAA in our testimony had to do with the equity 

of the way the user fee is structured by statute, that it is collected 

only from natural gas transmission pipeline operators, when in 

fact, the large majority of the funds collected via that fee are used 

for other purposes. And we raised questions as to whether or not 

this still legitimately constitutes a user fee. We pointed out that 

158 

the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Transportation, 

Housing and Urban Development bill highlighted this issue. So I 

think it is an effective mechanism to fund the program, however, 

the equity of it in terms of the collection and the beneficiaries is 

something I think that needs to be addressed both as a matter of 

policy and also to continue to satisfy the law. 

Mr. GREEN. Would that be something we could do in a pipeline 

safety reauthorization? 

Mr. SANTA. Yes, sir, I believe it is. It is something that—in that 

language in the Senate Appropriations Bill, they noted that it was 

something for the authorizing committees to address. 

Mr. GREEN. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Thank you. 

At this time, I would recognize the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. 

Rush, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. RUSH. Mr. Chairman, I am going to be brief. 

I just have a question for Ms. Black. 

Mrs. Black, I want to thank you for being here, and all of our 

thoughts and prayers are with you and the Santa Barbara area as 

you continue to deal with the spill that caused so very much damage to your community. 

What was your initial reaction when you heard that Plains 

America, the same owners of the pipeline that ruptured in Santa 

Barbara just 2 months ago, was also responsible for another, although smaller, leak in Illinois this past weekend, and are you satisfied with the corrective action that PHMSA imposed on Plains 

America? And lastly, do you feel that there is more to be done either from the standpoint of information-sharing, regulatory authority, additional resources, or any other area that could help empower local communities and help prevent future disasters? 

Ms. DIANNE BLACK. That was a long question. 

Mr. RUSH. Yes, it was. 

Ms. DIANNE BLACK. So I will try to piece it apart and answer it. 

Mr. RUSH. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. DIANNE BLACK. Please feel free to follow up if I miss pieces 

of it. 

Mr. RUSH. Yes. 

Ms. DIANNE BLACK. So reaction. I felt sorry for the community 

that also suffered. So that was really personal reaction. 

In terms of satisfaction with the corrective order, I will let you 

know. It depends on what sort of process is undertaken to recommission line 901. I am satisfied that it shut in right now. I am 

satisfied that Plains has not recommissioned line 903, at least as 

to the Sisquoc Pump Station. So I am satisfied with that right now, 

but I am concerned about recommissioning that line without having the protection systems in place that are in place for other pipelines within the county. So I would be very satisfied if an automatic shut-off system were put into place on that pipeline. And I 

would be very satisfied to see the smart pig results and the interpretation of those results to see if there are other issues within the 

line. 

Mr. RUSH. So are you satisfied then with the level of responsibility that Plains America assumed and their subsequent actions in 

Santa Barbara, were they strong actions, corrective actions? 

159 

Ms. DIANNE BLACK. So the response in Santa Barbara County so 

far has really been clean-up efforts. And yes, I think that under 

unified command, Plains has done a good job of addressing cleanup concerns. What we haven’t seen yet is the recommissioning efforts; what is going to happen when that pipeline is put back into 

service, and what sorts of systems will be in place then. 

Mr. RUSH. Yes. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Chairman, these witnesses have been in the chair for a long 

time, and you have been in the chair for a long time, so in the interest of time I am going to yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. You know what, you are a fine gentleman. 

Mr. RUSH. I thought so. I thought so. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. Well, I want to thank the witnesses for being 

with us today. We do value your input. And as we move toward reauthorization, of course, your comments will be useful. 

I am also inserting into the record, at the request of Mrs. Capps, 

the corrective action orders from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to the Plains Pipeline Company, without objection. 

Mr. WHITFIELD. And then we will keep the record open for 10 

days for any additional materials. I know that one of the Democratic members had asked to submit some questions, I think, to 

Ms. Cummings, so that will be done as well. 

But thank you all. We look forward to working with you as we 

move forward, and thanks for coming all the way from California 

and Washington State. 

And with that, the hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 1:25 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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