Washington, D.C. — The following are opening remarks, as prepared for delivery, from Ranking Member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Rick Larsen (D-WA) and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials Dina Titus (D-NV), during today’s hearing, titled, “Promoting and Improving Safety and Efficient Pipeline Infrastructure.”
Video of Larsen’s and Titus’ opening statements can be found here and here.
More information on the hearing can be found here.
Ranking Member Larsen:
Thank you, Chairman Webster and Ranking Member Titus, for holding this hearing.
The recent rise in pipeline incidents and deaths should be a warning call to this Committee.
Last year, in the Northwest, we marked the 25th anniversary of the Olympic pipeline explosion in Bellingham, WA that claimed the lives of two 10-year-old boys and an 18-year-old young man.
The explosion released 237,000 gallons of gasoline into a creek that flowed through Whatcom Falls Park in Bellingham.
For my entire tenure in Congress, I have fought to reduce the risk of pipeline incidents, promote transparency of pipeline safety information for local communities and increase accountability for pipeline operators.
Progress has been made, but more needs to be done through legislation and rulemaking.
PHMSA advanced two important rulemakings in December 2024: one on methane leak detection and the other on gaseous carbon dioxide pipeline requirements.
The leak detection rule helps reduce pollution by limiting unintentional methane leaks and intentional venting. I want to be clear that President Trump signed this requirement into law in his first term.
A carbon dioxide rulemaking was first required in the 2011 Pipeline Safety Act–13 years ago. This requirement was made more urgent after a carbon dioxide pipeline ruptured in Mississippi in 2020.
These rulemakings will increase safety, are required by law and the new Administration should quickly advance them after pulling them back. They can do work already without us having to do more work.
But now I want to turn to deadly accidents.
According to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), in the past 5 years there have been 3,070 pipeline incidents claiming 58 lives, injuring 167 more and causing more than $2.3 billion in property damage.
The primary reason these incidents occurred was due to material, weld or equipment failures—all factors primarily within the control of pipeline operators.
The National Transportation Safety Board, in addition to doing this great work investigating the aviation accidents we’ve seen over the last 35 days, has nine open pipeline safety investigations, including one it launched this past weekend after a Kansas Gas pipeline leak and explosion in Hutchinson, Kansas.
More people are dying, as well. 2024 and 2023 saw the deadliest pipeline incidents in more than a decade.
In March 2023, a UGI pipeline explosion at a chocolate factory in West Reading, PA killed seven people, injured 11 people, displaced 3 families from a neighboring apartment building and forced many more from the area to evacuate.
The chocolate factory was not rebuilt, and production has shifted to other facilities—leaving the town of West Reading, population 4,530, without a significant employer that had been in the community for 65 years.
More problems are occurring—there were more pipeline incidents in 2024 than in 2023, including one in my district.
In December 2023, the now BP-owned Olympic pipeline saw another gas spill in my district, this time more than 20,000 gallons of diesel spilled near an elementary school in Conway, Washington. Emergency response took more than a year, and it still hasn’t been completely cleaned up.
More can be done; we should work quickly to pass a pipeline safety bill similar to the one we passed last Congress.
This Committee unanimously approved a bipartisan pipeline safety bill that improved transparency by creating an Office of Public Engagement—an idea championed by Representative Strickland.
The legislation also required PHMSA to review operator emergency response plans.
More funding will help: PHMSA and the state pipeline safety programs need resources and staff to inspect pipelines, conduct investigations when incidents occur and take appropriate enforcement actions so bad actors are held accountable.
Our bill increased the authorizations for both PHMSA and state pipeline safety authorities. We also included $56 million for state pipeline safety programs over four years.
But I am troubled by the President’s recent efforts to remove people from jobs that play a critical role to hold pipeline operators accountable for their actions that might harm people.
As an example, PHMSA assessed a $2 million civil penalty on Denbury Gulf Coast Pipelines and its contractor, Republic Testing Laboratories, for obstructing PHMSA safety inspectors from observing pipeline repairs and verbally and physically assaulting PHMSA safety inspectors.
Employees of these two companies physically prevented a PHMSA safety inspector from questioning a welder, held up a screen to prevent a PHMSA safety inspector from observing a weld, and prevented PHMSA staff from photographing test equipment.
These repairs were being conducted to replace the carbon dioxide pipeline that ruptured in Satartia, Mississippi that sent 45 people to the hospital in 2020.
Denbury’s behavior towards PHMSA safety inspectors, the Trump Administration’s efforts to cut staff from the Office of Pipeline Safety, and cut funding for grants Congress mandated, including PHMSA’s technical assistance grants, put communities at risk nationwide.
Congress recognized that improving safety requires strong regulation and funding support. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law created the first ever Natural Gas Distribution Infrastructure Safety and Modernization grant program.
Last May, PHMSA announced $196 million for 60 publicly-owned utilities to repair or replace natural gas pipelines. This investment will reduce incidents and improve safety. We should keep it going.
Pipelines play a critical role in the daily lives of Americans.
We are here today to make sure the national pipeline network safely delivers energy across the country.
I look forward to today’s discussion and thank each of the witnesses for your testimony.
Ranking Member Titus:
Thank you, Chairman Webster, for holding this hearing today.
There are 3.4 million miles of hazardous liquid and gas pipelines in the United States that help deliver energy to our communities, and over 11,000 of those are in Nevada. Ensuring the safe operations of these pipelines is a matter I take very seriously.
In 2004, Congress enacted legislation to create the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. PHMSA’s dedicated staff in the Office of Pipeline Safety ensure that the United States’ pipeline transportation network operates safely, reliably and in an environmentally sound manner.
States have also taken steps to improve pipeline safety. In 2021, Nevada became the first state to require annual leak surveys of all intrastate natural gas pipelines. By identifying leaks early on, these regulations are helping prevent explosions at businesses and in residential areas across Nevada. Late last year, regulators in Colorado also finalized rules requiring operators of natural gas pipelines to disclose more data on leaks.
Data from PHMSA shows that serious pipeline incidents have decreased by 34 percent over the last twenty years. Despite this progress, our work is far from over.
In January 2024, two homes less than a mile from each other in Jackson, Mississippi, exploded three days apart from Atmos Energy pipeline leaks. The first home explosion resulted in one fatality and one injury. The resulting fire from the second explosion spread to a neighboring home. These incidents happened after Atmos had identified leaks in their pipelines in the area but failed to repair them.
In December of last year, a natural gas explosion in Avondale, Louisiana, killed one person and injured five. This pipe was also operated by Atmos Energy.
Congress has repeatedly made clear that pipeline safety is a bipartisan issue. This is why I am so concerned about President Trump’s efforts to slash the federal workforce.
Last Congress, this Committee approved a bipartisan pipeline safety bill that would authorize PHSMA to hire 30 additional staff to implement pipeline safety policies and fulfill congressional mandates. This was supported by Democrats and Republicans, as well as industry and safety advocates, because increased capacity will make pipelines safer for operators, communities near pipelines, and our environment. This legislation, however, did not receive a vote on the House floor.
The bipartisan PIPES Act of 2023 also included critical provisions to address PHMSA’s safety workforce shortages, improve PHMSA’s public outreach and engagement efforts, and strengthen penalties for pipeline damage or disruption. The bill also had provisions to help PHMSA prepare to regulate the next generation of pipelines.
Congress invested in pipeline projects to transport gaseous carbon dioxide and hydrogen through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act. I want to be sure that federal safety regulators have the tools they need to mitigate new risks associated with these projects.
In closing, I look forward to working with Chairman Webster and the other members of this Committee to build upon the bipartisan work on pipeline safety to get legislation across the finish line this Congress.
Thank you to the witnesses for being with us today. I look forward to hearing each of your perspectives on this critical issue.
With that, I yield back.
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