Barack Obama proposes $3.5 billion gas pipeline overhaul

[Purveyor]

By Andrew Restuccia and Elana Schor
4/21/15 2:15 PM EDT

The Obama administration on Tuesday proposed spending as much as $3.5 billion to replace aging natural gas pipelines nationwide — a move that comes just as POLITICO published a lengthy investigation of the public safety threat posed by pipelines and the numerous problems plaguing the federal agency that regulates them.

The announcement, included in a 348-page government report examining how to upgrade a vast array of the country’s energy infrastructure, is aimed at addressing the dangers to both public safety and the climate from pipelines that leak or rupture.

But the amount of money the administration is proposing is just a fraction of what it would take to replace the hundreds of thousands of miles of decades-old cast-iron and bare-steel natural gas distribution pipes — the lines that are considered most vulnerable to ruptures. A full replacement would cost $270 billion, the report says. And the whole proposal immediately ran into GOP skepticism.

The report, from a sprawling Energy Department study called the Quadrennial Energy Review, calls for creating a DOE program to offer states financial incentives to replace and repair their aging infrastructure, while cutting greenhouse gas emissions from distribution lines that carry natural gas to homes and businesses. The price tag would be $2.5 billion to $3.5 billion over 10 years.

POLITICO’s analysis of federal pipeline data found that the older lines are a major part of the problem. Since 2002, about a quarter of all reported pipeline incidents involved failed parts that had been installed before 1970, including 91 incidents in which the parts were at least 80 years old. During the past 12 years, spills, breaks and other accidents from all gas, oil and hazardous liquids pipelines caused a total of more than $5.5 billion in damage.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/aging-gas-pipeline-overhaul-barack-obama-117191.html#ixzz3Y3cmBcbF

[House of Roberts]

1. Sounds like a bailout for the private energy sector.

Let them fix their own pipelines, and to make sure they do it, require them to carry bonding to cover potential accidents. Then the insurance companies will do the regulating for us.

[postulater]

3. ^^^^^ Let them fix their own pipelines.

And punish them for every lineal foot that is not up to standard by revoking any subsidies first and then fine double after the subsidy is gone.

Then force them to create a fund for future replacement and maintenance.

[underpants]

2. Sounds needed but it is going to jam up traffic on some rural "highways"

I see natural gas markers in several routes on dual divided or even 2 lane roads.

It will be a big boost for the economy - any infrastructure work is.

[blkmusclmachine]

4. Meh.