$67 million requested for pipeline safety

Federal pipeline safety programs would get an extra $67 million and nearly 120 new employees under a proposal President Obama announced Monday that brought cheers from safety advocates pushing to address accidents and growing safety concerns. The request, part of the president’s $3.8 trillion plan, would almost double the number of enforcement agents nationwide, according [...]

Obama signs pipeline safety bill

On Tuesday, President Obama signed into law a pipeline safety bill that gained momentum after a string of high-profile incidents, including a deadly Northern California explosion in 2010. The bill, which passed Congress with rare bipartisan support, doubles the maximum fine for safety violations to $2 million, authorizes more pipeline inspectors and requires automatic shut-off valves on new or replaced pipelines “where [...]

Risks for expanding a heavy crude oil pipeline are too high

Within weeks, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is supposed to decide whether to authorize a 1,600-mile expansion of a tar sands crude oil pipeline network across six Midwestern, Western and Southern U.S. states and three Canadian provinces. Alternatively, she could pass the decision on to President Barack Obama. The expanded pipeline network, owned and operated [...]

House pipeline bill would delay new safety measures

As the President considers whether to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives would prohibit regulators from implementing safety rules recommended by the National Transportation Safety Board. The agency charged with regulating the nations 2.5 million miles of pipelines, the Department of Transportation’s Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety [...]