WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Tom Udall (D-N.M.) , ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, announced that the final omnibus spending bill that passed today in the Senate includes improvements he secured to the pipeline safety legislation to hold pipeline operators responsible for preventing, detecting and addressing methane leaks that pose a safety threat to nearby communities and worsen climate change. The measures draw from Udall’s METHANE Act , following successful bipartisan negotiations to crack down on methane leaks from pipelines.
Methane leaks can lead to deadly explosions and unchecked emissions of a climate super pollutant. Without regulation, they pose serious public health risks to communities near natural gas facilities, and worsen climate change at 84 times the warming potency of carbon dioxide. The PIPES Act reauthorizes pipeline safety programs at the Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), the agency charged with regulating pipelines for safety and environmental purposes.
“Communities in New Mexico—and across America— that are near natural gas pipelines should not be at risk for deadly explosions from preventable leaks,” Udall said. “The inclusion of these improvements to the PIPES Act improvements in the omnibus spending bill is a crucial step to prevent methane leaks that endanger our families and our climate. Methane leaks release a staggering 1.3 million metric tons of this super-pollutant every year, which worsen the existential threat of climate change. I applaud this bipartisan effort to include common sense rules to prevent future methane leaks, and combat the Trump administration’s repeated attempts to weaken safeguards on methane pollution.”
Udall successfully included requirements in the final spending bill for natural gas facility operators to deploy the latest technology to prevent, detect and address dangerous methane leaks in the PIPES Act. These improvements in the omnibus spending bill are based on Udall’s legislation, the METHANE Act , and his amendment to require PHMSA regulation for the first time to nearly 100,000 miles of natural gas “gathering” pipelines. Udall opposed the original bill in the Senate Commerce Committee and successfully included his amendment on the Senate floor earlier this year.
The Udall amendment in the PIPES Act requires the Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration (PHMSA) to limit the release of methane gas into the environment in three ways:
1. Require companies to use advanced leak detection technologies to better identify and repair environmentally hazardous leaks, in order to limit methane releases.
2. Require operators to create a plan to minimize methane leaks as a part of their inspection and maintenance plans.
3. PHMSA must consider regulations that would require operators to take steps to reduce intentional natural gas releases that occur when pipes are vented or repaired.
A one-page summary of the Udall amendment can be found here .
Udall has been a consistent advocate of greater action to stop methane pollution, advocating for both EPA and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) rules during the Obama Administration and leading the Senate floor fight to stop a measure that would have prevented any BLM action on methane.
Udall and U.S. Representative Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) previously led a group of 51 lawmakers in filing an amicus brief last year to challenge the Trump administration’s rollback of a methane prevention rule. In July, the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California overturned the Trump administration’s rollback of methane leak prevention requirements on federal and Tribal lands. In 2018, the Trump Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a rollback of rules requiring natural gas operators to reduce methane emissions and prevent unnecessary flaring and venting of the potent greenhouse gas.
