There have been many regulatory and legislative changes over the last 10 years in the oil and gas pipeline industry. The industry has not seen this much change since the first regulations were put into place over 30 years ago. First of the recent changes was the Operator Qualification Rule, issued in 1999, which requires operators to have qualified personnel working on their pipeline systems. From there we saw the addition of pipeline integrity rules for hazardous liquids pipelines, including stipulations for maintaining systems in high-consequences areas (HCAs). For the first time, this rule spelled out where and when operators needed to implement additional measures to ensure pipeline integrity, as well as mandated the re-inspection intervals of these pipeline sections. The industry was required to either inline inspect or hydrostatically test all pipelines within a HCA. This was followed by integrity rules for natural gas pipelines, which established re-inspection intervals for integrity and added direct assessment as a tool to ensure pipeline safety. More recently, the U.S Congress passed the Pipeline Inspection, Protection, Enforcement, and Safety (PIPES) Act of 2006. This bill requires senior executives of pipeline operating companies to certify annual and semiannual pipeline integrity management program performance reports. His or her signature on the report verifies that the signing officer has reviewed it and that to the best of the officer's knowledge and belief, the report is true and complete. This places legal responsibility on senior executive officers to ensure pipeline integrity.
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