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US Government safety regulation
US GOVERNMENT PIPELINE SAFETY
REGULATIONS:
Regulations update and report on the regulatory
posture and activities of Congress and OPS
INTRODUCTION
The Federal Regulatory picture becomes more complex as time passes.
The Congress is requiring that more and more areas of safety be addressed,
either by way of studies and evaluation or regulations. The OPS seems to be
bogging down under the load and regulatory system. When OPS was estab-
lished in 1968, a regulation normally took about 9 months to a year from notice
to final rule. The entire basic set of Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Regulations was
developed and published in less than two years. Today, there are proposed
regulations on the agenda that have been in the process since early 1987 and
early 1989, and the NPRM has not even been published. It is unfortunate, but
the "system" seems not to be working, at least not working well.
This presentation will review the posture of the Congress regarding
pipeline safety, with past and pending activities; OPS regulatory activities;
and what the future holds, including certain areas of new and existing
technology. I'll focus primarily on those areas that will impact on/or relate to
the evaluation and operation of existing pipeline systems.
CONGRESSIONAL POSTURE
The Congress passed the comprehensive Pipeline Safety Reauthorization
Act of 1988 that spelled out some very definite areas of concern over the safety
of gas and hazardous liquid pipelines. This included the mandating of specific
regulations and studies.
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