GOVERNMENT

摘要

Despite some frenetic action toward the very end of the regu-lar session of Congress, neither the House nor Senate passed a pipeline safety reform bill, despite the political stimulus supplied by the BP low-stress pipeline leak in Alaska. There will be a lame duck session of Congress in November; but the Senate's seeming antipathy toward pipeline safety legislation casts a pall over the chances that any bill will emerge in 2006. There is no reason why Congress necessarily has to pass a pipeline safety bill this year, either for reasons of expiring Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) programs, or for reasons having to do with satisfying INGAA, which has been pushing only one provision. That is a change in the current transmission line integrity management program (IMP) which requires interstates to retest pipeline segments subject to the integrity rule every seven years, specifically for corrosion. INGAA wants to get out from under that seven-year requirement and instead retest segments based on risk factors related to the specific segment.