Millions of Americans rely on clean, efficient natural gas
to fuel homes and workplaces, with no thought about the vast network of pipelines
that criss-cross the country transporting this abundant source of clean energy
from the wellhead to the burner tip.
The companies that build and operate interstate natural gas
pipelines have created the safest mode of transportation today — safer
than highway, rail, airborne and waterborne transport. And the interstate natural
gas pipeline industry is spending millions of dollars each year on research
and new technologies to make their systems increasingly safer.
In December 2002, President George W. Bush signed into
law the Pipeline Safety Bill H.R. 3609, the Pipeline
Safety Improvement Act of 2002. One of the provisions of the act required
the Secretary of Transportation to issue regulations defining integrity
management programs prescribing the standards for conducting a risk analysis
and adoption and implementation of an integrity management program for
natural gas pipelines.
In December 2003, the Office of Pipeline Safety issued
a final rule
requiring natural gas pipeline operators to develop integrity management
programs for gas transmission pipelines located where a leak or rupture
could do the most harm; that is, could impact high-consequence areas.
