May 2025 Vol. 80 No. 5
Features
Inside Infrastructure: Pipeline safety debate continues, construction fully engaged
Eben M. Wyman, Wyman Associates
The issue of pipeline safety, especially with regard to preventing damage to underground facilities during excavation, is a longstanding priority of the excavation construction industry. Although pipeline safety legislation has traditionally been bipartisan, battles over climate change and other peripheral issues have polarized the pipeline safety debate and obstructed efforts to move a bill through the legislative process and enacted into law.
Many construction organizations worked together to advance the Promoting Innovation in Pipeline Efficiency and Safety (PIPES) Act of 2023 in the 118th Congress, which included important language intended to improve state damage prevention programs. Unfortunately, the bill died a slow death because of growing disputes over methane emissions, project permit reform and consumer choice related to available sources of energy in the future. These supporting organizations are now pushing for the resurrection of the PIPES Act, sooner rather than later.
When the second Trump Administration took office and the new Congress commenced in January of this year, expectations for early introduction of a new pipeline safety reauthorization bill were not high. However, when the House Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) Committee, which approved the PIPES Act of 2023, held a hearing in February on “Promoting and Improving Safety and Efficient Pipeline Infrastructure,” it became clear there was strong interest in moving a new pipeline safety reauthorization in the first session of the 119th Congress.
Damage prevention fundamentals
While there are many facets to pipeline safety, the construction industry is especially concerned with the enduring problem of damage to underground facilities during excavation. Organizations like the Distribution Contractors Association (DCA) and others regularly support policy that encourages sharing responsibility in the damage prevention process.
A fundamental responsibility included in this process is ensuring for accurate and timely locating and marking of subsurface facilities prior to excavation. Many in the construction industry believe the next pipeline safety reauthorization bill should include language that would take steps toward improved pipeline mapping, underground facility locating and ensuring all relevant stakeholders are required to participate in the 811 process and meet their respective responsibilities.
Excavation contractors put safety first, and preventing damage to underground facilities during excavation activity is fundamental in their work. To that end, contractor organizations have consistently supported policy that reflects shared responsibility among all stakeholders and promotes four principal “pillars” of the damage prevention process:
- Full participation in the 811 process, including membership of all owners/operators of underground facilities to the state 811 center
Accurate and timely locating of underground facilities
- Visually identifying (“potholing”) of underground facilities
- Full and balanced enforcement of state damage prevention law
While these fundamental responsibilities in damage prevention are evident, strong enforcement must be administered in a balanced and equitable manner. Locating and accurate marking responsibilities subject to facility operators should be held in the same regard as one-call notification and safe digging practices subject to excavators.
On Feb. 25, DCA testified on pending pipeline safety reauthorization legislation, with a sharp focus on proposed language intended to improve state pipeline safety programs. The hearing was overseen by the House Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) Committee’s Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials. DCA’s witness, also an officer on the board of directors at the Pennsylvania Utility Contractors Association, was joined by representatives from the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, the Liquid Energy Pipeline Association and the Pipeline Safety Trust.
While the other stakeholders represented on this panel were regularly invited to testify at a pipeline safety hearing, the excavation/construction industry rarely is afforded that opportunity. The industry didn’t squander it.
DCA made its point straight out of the gate. “While there are many facets to pipeline safety, our industry is especially concerned with the enduring problem of damage to underground facilities during excavation activity,” DCA’s witness said. “Organizations like ours and leading damage prevention organizations like the Common Ground Alliance have long supported the concept of sharing responsibility in damage prevention. A fundamental responsibility included in this process is ensuring for accurate and timely locating and marking of subsurface facilities prior to excavation.”
CGA provides support for better mapping, locating
The Common Ground Alliance (CGA) is a member-driven association of nearly 4,000 members who are damage prevention professionals in every facet of the underground utility industry. They work to promote effective damage prevention best practices of today and evaluate anticipated practices and technologies of tomorrow.
DCA has long been associated with CGA and remains very active in the organization and pointed out CGA data to back up claims that improvements are needed. According to CGA’s 2023 Damage Information Reporting Tool (DIRT) Report, excavators face essentially 50-50 odds of being able to legally start work on time due to utilities not providing timely locates. This obviously undermines confidence in the 811 system.
On top of that, CGA indicates that failure to locate underground facilities accurately and on time was the root cause attributed to 34 percent of damages to underground utilities in 2023. Records of the location of underground utilities are often inaccurate or incomplete and are sometimes unavailable to damage prevention stakeholders.
The impasse during debate of the PIPES Act of 2020 stemmed from language that mandated the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) to consider methane emissions from pipeline systems and their impact on pipeline safety. In what was considered by some as retaliation, Republicans serving in the House Energy and Commerce (E&C) Committee pushed for inclusion of provisions addressing project permit reform and ensuring “fuel choice” for energy consumers.
While these industry priorities would be beneficial to the energy and construction industries and to American consumers, they are received as ‘poison bills’ when it comes to including them in pipeline safety legislation. In an effort to lower the temperature in the debate, many industry supporters of both permit reform and fuel choice language made the case to congressional Republicans that there will still be broad support for a pipeline safety bill that did not include those controversial positions.
Improvements needed in state statutes
The PIPES Act of 2023 considered in the last session of Congress addressed challenges to the damage prevention process by proposing improvements to state damage prevention programs. Specifically, the language would require state damage prevention authorities to demonstrate that they have adopted, or can show progress toward adopting, several leading practices in their damage prevention programs as part of the criteria considered when states apply for PHMSA damage prevention grant dollars.
These leading practices contained in the last bill included:
- Examining and limiting exemptions to the damage prevention process, including municipal exemptions
- Requiring a “positive response” from the facility owner prior to excavation to ensure that underground facilities are marked, or that the excavation area is clear of any underground facilities
- Requiring marking of all lines and laterals, including sewer lines and laterals
- Encouraging training for locate professionals
- Encouraging the use of state-of-the-art technologies to locate underground facilities, especially geographic information systems (GIS), which offer the most detailed and prolific pipeline mapping available
DCA hit the need for better facility mapping hard, and pointed out that the PIPES Act of 2020 began to push the issue.
The PIPES Act of 2020 included language that would require operators of gas distribution pipelines to identify and manage traceable, reliable and complete records, including maps and other drawings. Accurate mapping of underground utility infrastructure facilitates locating, and use of geographic information systems (GIS) is the most effective way to identify and document a wide range of data about the underground infrastructure in a given area.
Ensuring the use of available GIS mapping technologies would clearly be the most efficient way to identify and document the exact location of underground infrastructure, and that sentiment is shared by other industries. Several letters in support of GIS mapping put together by DCA in the last Congress were supported by other national associations and organizations representing engineers, equipment manufacturers and distributors, technology experts and labor unions.
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 provided an unprecedented $550 billion in new investments in American infrastructure, and a significant portion of those dollars will go toward improvements to underground systems. This means an unprecedented amount of excavation activity going underground and damage prevention is more important than ever before.
The provisions described above would take needed steps to encourage states to reduce exemptions to the 811 process. This includes locating companies employ state-of-the-art technologies, such as GIS mapping, along with published standards for documenting utility infrastructure, which will only improve the damage prevention process.
General agreement on other PHMSA issues
Industry representatives on the panel at February’s pipeline safety hearing expressed support for language that would hold those who engage in physical attacks on pipeline infrastructure accountable. Specifically, the PIPES Act considered in the last Congress would have established a criminal penalty of up to 10 years in prison for those who cause a defect to or disruption of a pipeline system.
Importantly, the provision would include pipeline facilities under construction. Organizations representing pipeline operators and those representing construction contractors generally agree on this issue. This has proven to be a tough sell with many Democrats, who claim the language would present conflicts with First Amendment provisions that allow for pipeline protests.
Among the multitude of issues also addressed at the February T&I committee hearing on pipeline safety, there was agreement between operators and contractors:
- Reforming the special permit process by establishing a permit review “shot clock” and limiting unrelated permit requirements
- Requiring PHMSA to review industry consensus safety standards more regularly
- Improving pipeline expertise of PHMSA personnel by hiring those with engineering, scientific work of other technical expertise, and not those who focus on environmental issues
- Increasing transparency of PHMSA’s inspection process by ensuring reporting on inspection priorities, dates and locations
- Nominating and confirming a PHMSA Administrator to provide clarity and certainty to PHMSA operations and activities
- Requiring more regular meetings of PHMSA’s advisory committees
The fact that lawmakers were unable to pass a pipeline safety reauthorization bill in the last Congress is unfortunate, but supporters of the PIPES Act are enthusiastic about getting a new bill moving sooner than later. Having the solidarity shown by the construction industry on pipeline safety, especially when it comes to damage prevention, is significant.
The nation’s pipeline safety program is sound, and our pipeline network offers the safest form of transportation for a range of energy sources. Still, there is room for improvement, especially in state damage prevention programs that exempt stakeholders from the 811 process or do not require, or at least encourage, use of superior technologies to locate and mark underground facilities before excavation work begins.
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