Stop me if you've heard this one. Government regulators are likely to be industry shills.
Cynthia Quarterman, the regulatory agency administrator, worked as legal counsel for Enbridge Energy, the owner of the burst pipeline.[...]
In the last year, PHMSA has granted more than a dozen safety waivers to the companies it regulates.
[...]
Already, activists are drawing parallels between PHMSA and the Minerals Management Service, which had regulatory oversight over the Deepwater Horizon rig that spilled millions of barrels into the Gulf of Mexico. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has disbanded MMS, arguing the agency had too cozy a relationship with the industry it regulated.
Otherwise known as closing the barn door after the horse has gone.
Alex Moore, who focuses on oil pipeline issues for the environmental group Friends of the Earth [...]has spent much of his time campaigning against a proposed oil pipeline that will stretch from Alberta, Canada, to Texas: the Keystone XL project. TransCanada has filed a request to PHMSA to receive a special permit that would allow the company to use thinner steel to build the Keystone XL pipeline. TransCanada was granted a similar special permit in 1997 that allowed the company to build a prior Keystone pipeline, which stretches from Canada to Ill., using steel with a stress level below the minimum safety requirement, according to a PHMSA document.[...]
The Environmental Protection Agency, in a July 16 letter to the State Department, raised a wide variety of concerns about the impact of Keystone XL. Chief among those concerns is that TransCanada does not have an adequate plan in the event of an oil spill.
Where have we heard that before?
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
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