PHMSA Posts Record Enforcement Numbers in 2012

The Department of Transportation/Pipeline Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) is holding operators accountable for compliance with safety rules. In its push to ensure the nation’s pipeline companies continue to enhance the safety of their systems by investing in necessary improvements, PHMSA issued 116 enforcement orders to pipeline operators in 2012, its second highest year, for problems with integrity management programs, qualified personnel, corrosion control, and a number of other possible regulatory violations identified during routine inspections and failure investigations. As a result of its enforcement efforts, PHMSA issued a record $8,748,200 in proposed fines in 2012, including its highest ever civil penalty case in response to a crude oil pipeline failure in Marshall, Michigan. PHMSA’s number of enforcement orders issued in 2012 is just four shy of the agency’s single year record in 2011 of 120.

The Pipeline Safety, Regulatory Certainty, and Job Creation Act of 2011, was signed into law last year by President Obama. The Act doubled the maximum civil penalty amount PHMSA can issue to pipeline operators for violating pipeline safety regulations from $100,000 to $200,000 for each violation, and from $1,000,000 to $2,000,000 for a related series of violations. The Act also authorizes PHMSA to increase its federal pipeline inspector workforce.

For more information on the U.S. DOT’s efforts to improve pipeline safety and awareness, visit: http://opsweb.phmsa.dot.gov/pipelineforum/.