Dangerous oil and gas industry exemption slipped into highway bill

[G_j]

https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/461113-dangerous-oil-and-gas-industry-exemption-slipped-into-highway-bill#.XYF9EOIeKEU.facebook

9/17/19

A landmark five-year, $287 billion highway bill moving in the Senate contains a poison pill provision that must be eliminated. The measure — which would be the largest highway legislation in history — is noteworthy for its inclusion of the first climate title in a surface transportation bill. The climate provisions are an important step toward addressing the urgent need to reduce transportation emissions and invest in infrastructure engineered to be more resilient to the increasingly severe effects of climate change.

Unfortunately, buried in this 510-page bill is an unrelated toxic provision that would establish a sweeping environmental exemption for thousands of natural gas, oil and wastewater pipelines — known as “gathering lines” — compressors and pumps on federal or Indian lands.

The provision would exclude such facilities from environmental review required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). If this provision becomes law, these pipelines could be built without public input or sound environmental review meant to analyze their potential impacts.


In the past, gathering lines often were located in sparsely populated areas and were only inches in diameter, in contrast to big transmission pipelines (e.g., the Keystone pipeline) that carry oil or natural gas across the country and are several feet in diameter. But gathering lines are getting larger — much larger. Producers today are employing gathering lines up to 36 inches in diameter with maximum operating pressures that rival transmission lines.

..more..