The nation has a pipeline safety problem. The country’s system for safeguarding against toxic and deadly pipeline accidents largely relies on inspectors who work for the pipeline companies themselves, which has led to poor oversight and leaks, landslides, and even explosions, according to a yearlong investigation by POLITICO’s E&E News reporter Mike Soraghan. Eight inspectors Mike interviewed for the story said safety warnings and recommendations are often ignored, and those who push back risk termination. “The inspectors are like a smokescreen,” Frank Chamberlin, a pipeline inspector from upstate New York, told Mike. “They put them on the project as a scapegoat.” New pipeline projects often face fierce opposition, with farmers and landowners insisting they don’t trust the safety of such projects. That could be a major problem for the next president, whether it’s President Joe Biden or former President Donald Trump. Biden is investing billions of dollars to encourage the capturing and burying of carbon emissions, which requires a network of new pipelines. And Trump has pledged to increase drilling and lay more oil and gas pipelines. Industry officials defend the privatized inspection system, where federal regulators rely on pipeline companies to hire and oversee inspectors. They compare it to the internal quality-control processes in factories and construction sites — and maintain there are plenty of safety backstops. That includes oversight by the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. PHMSA has about 200 inspectors on its staff who work with another 450 inspectors at state agencies to monitor the safety of the country’s more than 3 million miles of pipe. But the agency says it devotes only 7 percent of its safety staff to inspecting new pipelines. That means overseeing the nation’s rapidly expanding pipeline network is largely left to a small cadre of inspectors hired by the companies themselves. To many farmers across large swaths of rural America, that’s not enough to allow pipelines under their property. “They’re all in the same club,” said Steve Hickenbottom, who regrets allowing the Dakota Access pipeline to cross his farm. “They’re not going to crap on the guys they work with every day. It means zero to me.”
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