During a House Energy Committee hearing before the Congressional Recess, Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL) asked Executive Director of the Pipeline Safety Trust Bill Caram about funding cuts to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
00:00I'll recognize the general lady from Florida, the ranking member of the subcommittee, for five minutes for questions.
00:05Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:06Mr. Karam, you highlight the erosion of the commitment to pipeline safety throughout your testimony,
00:15and that includes the professional workforce at PHMSA, is that right?
00:20Yes, we have heard of retirements at PHMSA.
00:23And that, I understand that the community liaison department, which engages members of the public,
00:31has gone from 13 employees to just three people who are now responsible for engaging the entire country.
00:38Can you explain to us what the real world impacts of the reduction in professional expert workforce at PHMSA means for the safety of the public?
00:51Sure. Thank you for the question.
00:55Unfortunately, we don't know fully.
00:57We haven't heard official word out of PHMSA as exactly the extent of the retirements and the reductions in force.
01:04So we're going off of what's been reported in the media or what's available on their website, which hasn't been fully updated.
01:11But we have noticed that the community liaison department went from, as you mentioned, 13 down to three,
01:17and that includes the manager of the department.
01:19And that's three people in charge of, you know, public engagement with members of the public across the entire country
01:27who live among and alongside the over three million miles of pipeline, more miles of pipeline than paved roads,
01:34which I hope is obvious is not nearly enough.
01:37We've also heard, you know, most of the leadership staff is gone.
01:43That's a lot of years of experience that has been drained out.
01:49We've also heard a lot of staff from the standards and rulemaking team has retired as well.
01:55I'm also very concerned with the escalating costs and risk driven by the heating planet and climate change.
02:05In June, the National Transportation Safety Board issued a final report on the 1.1 million gallon pipeline oil spill
02:15in the Gulf of Mexico in 2023, which caused $30 million in damage.
02:19In the report, the NTSB specified that it was the result of land movement related to hurricane activity.
02:25And this is fresh in my mind because I saw significant damage to energy infrastructure following Hurricanes Helene and Milton in the Tampa Bay area.
02:38Does PHMSA currently have any regulations or guidelines, Mr. Cameron, for pipeline safety related to extreme weather events, flooding, and more intense hurricanes?
02:49Yeah, thank you for that question.
02:51So, we call all of those geohazards, these geologic threats to pipeline integrity, and they can be a result of extreme weather events.
03:03And in addition to hurricanes, we've seen pipeline failures after large rainfall, you know, of historic levels and things like that.
03:12There is nothing specific in PHMSA regulations about geohazards.
03:16What can Congress do if we're going to update regulations to better incorporate climate resilience practices?
03:23Mandate that PHMSA adopt geohazard-specific regulations.
03:27There's industry guidance out there.
03:29There's best practices by operators and a lot to go on to start writing those regulations now.
03:35There are also a few elephants in the room right now when it comes to pipeline safety,
03:40and one of them is the hatchet that the administration is taking to just basic funding of pipeline safety and PHMSA.
03:50Round your testimony out.
03:52What can we anticipate at PHMSA in regard to the safety of the public if these kind of draconian cuts to work professional experts
04:03and then their overall budget is enacted into law?
04:08Well, PHMSA's already under-resourced, understaffed agency before this,
04:13and it's really an all-hands-on-deck committed to safety,
04:16so it's really hard to imagine cuts not impacting their ability to be an effective safety regulator.
04:22These, the types of results that we would expect to see from these cuts and lowering of enforcement
04:32and regulatory activity are, I would imagine, will be long-term.
04:36I don't think you'll see an overnight change, but if we were to see a change,
04:40unfortunately, I think it's long-term and we'll be seeing it for years.
04:44The statistics that you highlighted early that say, well, maybe we really haven't seen a significant improvement
04:54in reduction in deaths and injuries, is that likely to continue if we're not able to properly fund
05:02and support pipeline safety across America?
05:05I hope that's not the case, but I do believe that a strong, effective regulator is what keeps pipelines,
05:12as part of what keeps pipelines safe and lacking that.
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