{"id":5391,"date":"2016-07-15T18:53:26","date_gmt":"2016-07-15T18:53:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=5391"},"modified":"2016-07-15T18:53:58","modified_gmt":"2016-07-15T18:53:58","slug":"comments-for-new-gas-pipeline-regulations-close","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=5391","title":{"rendered":"Comments for New Gas Pipeline Regulations Close"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>

The new regulations will cover 300,000 miles of existing natural-gas transmission pipelines. Photo: Pixabay<\/p><\/div>\n

by Mark Richardson<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

AUSTIN, Texas<\/strong> \u2013 The public comment<\/a> period nded Thursday, July 7th, for a major overhaul of the nation\u2019s gas pipeline safety\u00a0rules. The U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, or PHMSA, began the process almost six years ago after a fire killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes in San Bruno, California. Holly Pearen, senior attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund, said if adopted, the rules will apply to more than 300,000 miles of existing transmission pipelines.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe integrity assessments that are proposed would be incredibly helpful from a public safety standpoint and from an environmental standpoint. So the benefits of this rule are really tremendous,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Pipelines that leak are not just a safety problem. Transmission and storage facilities emit more than one-and-a-quarter-million tons of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, every year.<\/p>\n

According to Pearen, many of those emissions come from faulty equipment, leaking pipelines, valves and fittings that can be repaired or replaced.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo more regular assessments will not only provide public-safety benefits from averting incidents like in San Bruno, but also will help these operators curtail methane emissions,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Another major component of the new rules would be the repeal of exemptions for so-called gathering lines that run from gas wells to processing facilities.<\/p>\n

Pearen said the scale of these lines and the pace of their construction has increased rapidly with the boom in gas drilling.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd they\u2019re largely unregulated,\u201d she said. \u201cOperators are constructing gathering lines at the size and pressure of transmission lines.\u201d<\/p>\n

While full testing of existing pipelines could take years, environmentalists say the new regulations, if adopted in full, will be a massive improvement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Mark Richardson AUSTIN, Texas \u2013 The public comment period nded Thursday, July 7th, for a major overhaul of the nation\u2019s gas pipeline safety\u00a0rules. The U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, or PHMSA, began the process almost six years ago after a fire killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes in San Bruno, California. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5391"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5392,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5391\/revisions\/5392"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}