John Kerry: “I rise to make a short statement about the Pipeline Safety Improvement Act of 2001. This bill is identical to…”

“I rise to make a short statement about the Pipeline Safety Improvement Act of 2001. This bill is identical to legislation we considered and passed in the 106th Congress. Last year, I took the time to outline the problem we now face in regard to this issue, and I want to take a moment to do that again. To understand this legislation, you must understand the situation from which we started. The federal government, through the Department of Transportation, regulates more than 2,000 gas pipeline operators with more than 1.3 million miles of pipe and more than 200 hazardous liquid pipeline operators with more than 156,000 miles of pipe. To protect the public safety and the environment and maintain reliability in the energy system over that massive infrastructure is an enormous challenge. The responsibility for meeting that challenge, no matter how great it is, falls upon the industry and federal government, specifically, DOT's Office of Pipeline Safety. It is clear that both OPS and the industry have failed to rise to that challenge, and we have paid a high price. According to the OPS, since 1984, there have been approximately 5,700 natural gas and oil pipeline accidents nationwide, 54 of them in my home state of Massachusetts.”