Congressman Elijah E. Cummings Proudly Representing Maryland's 7th District

Opening Statement of Congressman Elijah E. Cummings

September 13, 2006
Rayburn House Office Building

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION & INFRASTRUCTURE

“Oversight Hearing on Low Pressure Liquid Pipelines: In the North Slope,
Greater Prudhoe Bay, Alaska”

Mr. Chairman:

I thank you for calling today’s hearing to enable us to examine both the specific circumstances surrounding the oil spill that occurred in Prudhoe Bay in Alaska as well as the adequacy of the current oversight regime for low- pressure liquid pipelines.

As my colleagues have discussed, approximately 270,000 gallons of oil leaked into the Alaskan tundra through a quarter-inch hole in a BP pipeline in March of this year. Subsequently, this summer, additional corrosion was found in a pipeline that required it to be partially shutdown. This action took nearly half of the 400,000 gallons normally transported through this BP network out of our national supply chain.

It has been reported that the owner of the pipeline, BP, had not done a thorough inspection of the inside of the pipeline in almost a decade.

I hope that BP will explain today why they allowed their pipelines to be so neglected for so long. BP is a firm that advertises itself as placing a high priority on operating in a manner that is safe for the environment. Further, BP is a firm that, according to the New York Times, made $7.27 billion in profits during the second quarter of this year – which was more than 30% higher than the profit it made during the same period last year and equated to a profit earning of roughly $55,000 per minute.

Such figures are essentially incomprehensible – particularly to people who are paying $3 for a gallon of gas on a fixed income while confronting other rising expenses.

BP certainly could not credibly say that they did not have the money necessary to afford to properly maintain their pipelines. Therefore, one can only conclude that BP simply didn’t have the will to do so. Further evidence of this appears in reports of several newspapers that suggest independent investigators found evidence that BP tried to intimidate employees who reported problems with the pipelines.

Equally incomprehensible to me is the timid and short-sighted action being taken by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA – pronounced FIM-SA). PHMSA is now considering a rule to require inspections every 5 years of pipelines that run through environmentally sensitive areas and which – unlike pipelines in urban areas – have generally been unregulated by PHMSA. There have been varying estimates that from 10,000 to 12,000 miles of pipelines would be left unregulated even if these proposed regulations were adopted.

So often, our government only reacts after an incident has occurred. It appears that in this case that the events in Alaska clearly show that companies operating low-pressure pipelines are unwilling to adequately maintain them even at the risk of losing production capacity and thus profit. Despite this, the Administration is unwilling to act to close the risks posed by unregulated low-pressure pipelines and negligent companies.

Mr. Chairman, the safety of pipelines across our nation is of critical importance and the incidents in Alaska reveal serious shortcomings in our safety oversight regime that demand immediate attention. I look forward to the testimony of today’s witnesses and I yield back.