Is U. S. lacking on gas safety?
Federal government needs to do more to regulate storage facilities, official says.
WASHINGTON — The federal government needs to do more to regulate natural gas storage facilities such as the one near Porter Ranch, where a leaking well in recent months forced thousands of residents from their homes, the head of the U. S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration said Thursday.
However, Administrator Marie Therese Dominguez told a House subcommittee, the agency doesn’t have the authority to make emergency rules like other safety agencies do. Instead, it has to go through a process that can take more than two years. “It’s very clear that there is a role for the federal government to play in terms of regulating storage,” she said. “Currently, our authority stops at the well. We don’t go down- hole at all.”
Congress could give the agency emergency authority. Reps. Brad Sherman ( D-Porter Ranch) and Steve Knight ( R- Palmdale) have f iled legislation that would require the agency to set and enforce underground gas storage standards.
Knight said that before it was capped last week, the gas leaking from Southern California Gas Co.’ s Aliso Canyon facility could have f illed the Empire State Building every day. Though the operation is one of the largest in the country, there are at least 35 states with similar underground storage facilities.
“This has taken four months to f ix. We are nowhere near the end of this tragedy,” Knight said. “There should be some sort of standards. This is something we never want to see again.”
While some of his Porter Ranch neighbors evacuated to escape the gas — which contained methane and noxious odorants — Sherman said that he installed filters and stayed put.
“The pipes are eligible for Social Security, that’s how old they are,” he said. “This incident needs to be an alarm clock that goes off, a wake- up call. And it needs to be heard here in Washington, 3,000 miles away.”
The safety agency this month issued a bulletin advising owners and operators of underground natural gas storage facilities “to review their operations to identify the potential of facility leaks and failures caused by corrosion, chemical damage, mechanical damage or other material deficiencies .”
Rep. Jackie Speier ( D-Hillsborough) has pushed for higher safety standards since a gas line exploded in her district in 2010, killing eight people in San Bruno. She told the committee she still can’t tell the families that regulations are better.
“Shame on us too for not yanking the funding for that agency until they get their act together,” Speier said. “We need [ it] to be a strong voice for safety, not a toothless tiger.”