How does the administration address pipeline security and safety? With a coverup of course!
Bill seeks to limit access to pipe data
Legislation is intended to protect infrastructure from attack, but critics say it could hinder safety
By Jeff Nesmith and Ralph K.M. Haurwitz
American-Statesman Staff
Thursday, October 11, 2001
WASHINGTON — A bill meant to protect pipelines and other energy infrastructure from terrorist attacks would sharply restrict public access to safety information and allow companies to conceal problems from independent scrutiny, critics say.
The measure, which would also apply to dams, refineries, power plants and transmission lines, would make it a crime for a federal employee to disclose "any information" that would reveal a specific weakness or vulnerability to attack.
"As a retired Naval intelligence officer, I'm very sensitive to security matters. However, the American public is much more at risk of deaths or injuries from pipeline accidents that happen every day on oil and gas pipelines due to industry negligence than they are due to any threat of terrorist action," said Robert Rackleff, president of the National Pipeline Reform Coalition, a group that advocates improved safety.
The bill, which comes in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, was unveiled this week by Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. An aide said it was worded carefully to avoid restricting access to information that is available to the public about pipelines.
"The operative word is 'specific,' " said William Wicker, a committee spokesman. "If a company tells the government of a specific, identifiable vulnerability of their pipeline to terrorism, that information should not be made public."
But the view that the bill's impact stops there was disputed by pipeline critics, such as Renea Hicks, an Austin lawyer representing landowners and a water district in a lawsuit challenging the proposed Longhorn gasoline pipeline.
The 51-year-old pipeline was once used to move crude oil from El Paso to Houston under South Austin. Longhorn Partners Pipeline LP has proposed using it to transport gasoline and other refined products from Houston to El Paso.
"I understand the motivation, but (Bingaman's bill) presents a huge danger to the public because we have an agency that is nearly universally recognized as inadequate to protect the public from the dangers of pipelines," Hicks said, referring to the federal Office of Pipeline Safety, part of the Transportation Department. "This closes off all avenues of public knowledge and leaves it only between the pipeline companies and their fairly puny regulator."
Improvements in the Longhorn proposal, including emergency shutoff valves and leak-detection devices, have come about only because of public discussion of the pipeline's potential weaknesses, Hicks added.
In a series of articles in July, the Austin American-Statesman described how the Office of Pipeline Safety has failed to address many safety and environmental problems. Nationwide, more than 1,000 people died in pipeline fires and explosions in the past decade. Millions of gallons of petroleum products spill into land and water each year.
The articles showed that corrosion, inadequate maintenance, lack of shutoff valves and other problems compromise the nation's pipeline system. Office of Pipeline Safety records, including reports filed by pipeline operators, revealed many of the problems. Such records might not be public if Bingaman's bill became law.
Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, said the nation must use great care in addressing the threat to terrorism to avoid exposing the public to greater dangers.
"Central Texas would certainly suffer if, for example, the Longhorn pipeline could avoid public disclosure of future spills and other threats to health and safety by simply filing the data with a federal bureaucracy known for protecting industry first and the public as an afterthought," Doggett said. "Sometimes secrecy is necessary, but too often it offers a convenient way to hide mistakes and incompetence."
Lisa Donnelly, an accountant who lives outside Dripping Springs, near the Longhorn pipeline, said she was disappointed by the bill but not surprised.
"I was very upset about the terrorist attack, but I immediately began to fear what kind of legislation would be pushed through," Donnelly said. "This is an excuse to let big oil companies run rampant and do what they want."
O.B. Harris, vice president and asset manager for Dallas-based Longhorn, said he had not seen the bill. He said Longhorn has taken additional measures to increase security in the past month, adding that it already had some of the most advanced security in the industry, with cameras that monitor pump stations, for example.
Michele Joy, general counsel of the Association of Oil Pipe Lines, said the "general thrust of the bill addresses some of the concerns we have" about pipeline security.
However, she said pipeline companies occasionally "need to disclose certain information in order to protect our facilities," adding that she was referring to making sure construction crews and others know of a pipeline's whereabouts and can avoid it.
Paul Orum, director of the Working Group on Community Right-to-Know, a Washington-based advocacy group, said recent history argues against Bingaman's bill. He cited the explosion of an El Paso Natural Gas Co. pipeline in the senator's home state last year. Twelve campers were killed.
The American-Statesman's series disclosed that an inspection of that pipeline a month before it exploded failed to find evidence of the corrosion later deemed to have caused the rupture.
However, Orum pointed out that if the inspector had learned from company officials that the pipeline was corroded — and therefore vulnerable — a law like that introduced by Bingaman would prohibit the agency from making the information public.
Wicker bristled at the suggestion that Bingaman would knowingly introduce a bill that might prohibit action to prevent such an incident.
Lois Epstein, an environmental engineer with the Alaskan nonprofit organization Cook Inlet Keeper, said she did not agree with other pipeline safety advocates that the bill would inevitably block public access to information.
"I don't think they are talking here about the kind of data we are interested in," Epstein said.
The bill's prospects are uncertain. A vote planned for today was canceled amid partisan bickering on broader energy legislation.
The pipeline office, acting on its own, has discontinued public access through the Internet to its national pipeline maps and to certain other information, including the location of drinking water supplies vulnerable to pipeline spills.
"Recent events have focused additional security concerns on critical infrastructure systems," the agency explained on its Web site. |
