The Pipeline Industry Meets Grief Unimaginable: Congress Reacts with the Pipeline Safety Improvement Act of 2002

Abstract

Combined, all pipeline incidents in 2000 caused a record setting $197 million in property damage. The number of fatalities for the year (16) was the highest in 25 years. The above accidents illustrate the two sides of the pipeline safety coin. On the one hand, pipelines are an efficient and safe way to transport energy. On the other hand, because they transport so much material so efficiently, a single accident has the potential to be vastly more catastrophic than a tanker truck spill. According to the National Transportation Safety Board, a single pipeline accident, "...can injure hundreds of persons, affect thousands more, and cost millions of dollars in.. .property damage, loss of work opportunity, community disruption, ecological damage, and insurance liability. This paper reviews the legislative history of pipeline safety, focusing on the Pipeline Safety Improvement Act of 2002.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 15 citations exist upstream.