On the recordJune 8, 2016
As you have just heard, this is a great piece of legislation. This is exactly the way that Congress is supposed to work. We had our differences, but we worked them out because everybody gave a little bit to get to the middle--to get something good for America. This is the kind of bill that, on an average day, will not get any of us elected or unelected, but it is something that is good for the safety of America on pipelines and hazardous materials. I would like to point out just a few items that, I think, are particularly important: For the first time, we have added an emergency order authority so that our regulators, when there is a problem, can quickly address it as opposed to having to wait around and let it burn out on its own; We added some provisions in there to boost funding to the States and the localities so that they can train their own people on how to deal with these things, because they are, after all, the first responders; We added some information relative to oil spill response plans. For me, I thought it was very important that we added a section that makes sure that there are no conflicts of interest on the studies done by PHMSA, on which we rely. There are many other provisions in this bill that are deserving of our support--as always, like with any bill. Any one of us can point out things that we don't like or that we wanted more on, but that is what compromise is all about.…
