Over the past decade, federal and states agencies have taken measures to improve gas pipeline safety. However, too often significant progress is not made unless there are human losses. In September 2010, a San Bruno California neighborhood was devastated by a gas pipeline explosion that killed eight Californians. Fighting a geyser of flames, fire fighters watched helplessly as homes were destroyed and dozens of citizens were injured. As a result, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has recently proposed new rules and policies that create higher safety standards and protect those reporting violations.
Established in 1911, CPUC regulates privately owned electric, natural gas, telecommunications, water, railroad, other rail transit and passenger transportation companies. In its role of regulating gas utilities companies, the agency has regulatory jurisdiction over 100,000 miles of utility-owned natural gas pipelines, including the Pacific Gas and Electric infra-state pipeline system associated with the San Bruno explosion. As testimony during the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)'s investigation hearing for the San Bruno incident has revealed, regulating pipelines can be tricky because many infrastructures are exempt from specific safety regulations.
Through these newly proposed rules, CPUC's objectives are to promote an ethical corporate and workplace culture that focuses on safety. While pipelines have been deemed the safest way to transport energy products such as oil and gas, recent failures of pipeline infrastructures, including last year's BP oil rig explosion in the Gulf, have caused state agencies to consider the human cost and risks associated with pipeline transportation. The proposed regulations would allow for the development and adoption of construction, risk assessment and inspection standards. In addition, the rules will provide protection for whistleblowers who inform the CPUC of safety hazards.
While the rule-making process is in its early stages, the CPUC seeks to obtain public input, as well as collect and analyze the data and conclusions based on NTSB's investigation of the San Bruno gas explosion. CPUC's first public participation meetings are to be held in San Bruno in early April 2011.
When tragedy begets change, many hope that political agendas do not take precedent over the need to promote public safety and healing. The San Bruno tragedy, like so many other gas pipeline accidents that have occurred over the past several months, leads us all to realize that as energy and resource needs grow, attention to public safety should also increase.
