AGA’s Christina Sames testifies on pipeline safety
Published by Isabel Stagg,
Editorial Assistant
World Pipelines,
American Gas Association’s Senior Vice President of Safety, Operations, Engineering and Security, Christina Sames, testified on Tuesday 7 May, 2024, before the US House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials to highlight critical policy needs to improve pipeline safety in the upcoming reauthorisation of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA).
“The distribution industry takes very seriously the responsibility of continuing to deliver natural gas to our families, neighbours, and business partners as safely, reliably and responsibly as possible. Every year, the industry invests US$33 billion on the safety of our natural gas pipeline systems.” said Sames in her testimony. “As pipeline safety reauthorisation legislation is drafted this year, AGA encourages Congress to work in a bipartisan fashion to move reasonable and consensus changes to pipeline safety law and regulation, support PHMSA’s primary role as pipeline safety regulator, and recognise the great strides in pipeline safety engineering and operating practices that pipeline companies are putting into practice across the country.”
Natural gas is delivered to customers through an approximately 2.7 million mile underground pipeline system, including 2.3 million miles of local utility distribution pipelines, 100 000 miles of gathering lines and 300 000 miles of transmission pipelines providing service to more than 189 million Americans. The natural gas utility distribution pipelines, operated by the local distribution companies AGA represents, make up the critical last link in the delivery chain that brings natural gas from its point of origin to the consumer.
AGA and its members have long supported fact-based, reasonable, flexible and practicable updates to pipeline safety legislation that build upon lessons learned and evolving improvements to pipeline safety and related programmes and technology. Four out of five key principles highlighted by Sames’ testimony before the committee are included in H.R. 6496, the Promoting Innovation in Pipeline Efficiency and Safety (PIPES) Act of 2023. Key needs highlighted in Sames’ testimony include directing PHMSA to incentivise states to adopt One Call programme leading practices to limit excavation damage incidents, promotion of pipeline technology alternatives, strengthened criminal penalties for damage to pipelines, furthered research and development on hydrogen-natural gas blending, implementation of a Pipeline Safety Voluntary Information-Sharing System and four-year reauthorisation of PHMSA’s Pipeline Safety Programme.
Learn more about AGA’s work towards pipeline safety here and read Sames’ full testimony here.
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World Pipelines’ May 2024 issue
The May 2024 issue of World Pipelines features our annual focus on pipelines in extreme environments (hear from Michels, Vacuworx, and RMI). The keynote section on pipelines and the environment covers methane emissions, new CO2 transport options, and technologies for environmentally friendly delivery of energy. Also in this issue: the trials of a new inline inspection tool (STATS Group), and is DCVG inspection obsolete, asks EMPIT GmbH?
Read the article online at: https://www.worldpipelines.com/regulations-and-standards/09052024/agas-christina-sames-testifies-on-pipeline-safety/
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