Obama’s expected new oil pipeline rules could be scuttled by Trump

BILLINGS, MONT. — President Barack Obama’s administration is expected to push through long-delayed safety measures for the nation’s sprawling net work of oil pipelines in its final days, d e s p i t e r e s i s t a n c e f r o m industry and concern that incoming president Donald Trump may scuttle them.

The measures are aimed at preventing increasingly f re quent a c c i dent s s uch a s a 176,000 - g a l l on s pi l l that fouled a North Dakota creek this month. Thousands more accidents over the past decade caused $2.5 billion in damages nationwide and dumped almost 38 million gallons of fuels.

Fights over pipelines have intensified in recent years, illustrated by the dispute over TransCanada’s Keystone XL plan and efforts by American Indians to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline from crossing beneath the Missouri River near the Stand- ing Rock Sioux Reservation.

The U.S. Department of Transportation proposal covers roughly 200,000 miles of lines that crisscross the country and carry crude, gasoline and other hazardous liquids.

Environmental and safety advocates have criticized the agenc y ’s commitment to tightening oversight of that network after a key safety feature — automatic valves that quickly shut down ruptured lines — was omitted from a draft rule published in 2015.

Further revisions sought by the petroleum industry could make the rule largely ineffective, said Carl Weimer wit h t he P i pel i ne S a f e t y Trust. But keeping the proposal intact would expose it to a legal challenge or reversal by a Republic an- controlled Congress and Trump, an enthusiastic advocate for fossil fuels whose administration would enforce the new safety provisions, Weimer added.