Bill Pascrell: “I rise in support of H.R. 5782. I must say that Mr. Young and Mr. Oberstar deserve a lot of credit, because in the…”

“I rise in support of H.R. 5782. I must say that Mr. Young and Mr. Oberstar deserve a lot of credit, because in the Transportation Department there was more coming together than I have seen in any place in this Congress. This was not an easy piece of legislation. You go back to 2002, we had some really good debates. We had some good arguments. We had real dissent. I want to thank Mr. Petri and Mr. DeFazio for getting over that hurdle. We got 2.3 million miles of natural gas in hazardous liquid pipelines. If that sets in, you know how critical these issues are. We could be stuck in the mud debating each other or we could get over the hump and try to get resolve. You did that, and I want to commend you, Mr. Young. I am not patronizing. I am not a patronizing person when I say that to you. For years many in Congress attempted to pass the legislation to give the Office of Pipeline Safety some real teeth and enforcement to adopt better and tighter safety regulations. In 2002, as was mentioned, we passed a very strong pipeline safety law. By all accounts OPS and the industry have made significant progress since then. The national mapping system has now been completed. When we looked at that mapping system at the turn of the century, it was a disaster. We didn't know where these pipelines were in the first place. How are you going to fix them if you don't know where they are?”