Did you know that there is a federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA)? But of course there is. And you might suppose that since pipelines carry mostly oil and natural gas, it would be housed inside the Department of Energy. But no: it is part of the Department of Transportation. So we have yet another instance of government cabinet department that does nothing to produce an increased supply of the thing it was created for (energy, but see also: education), while a department that is widely failing in its primary responsibility (transportation) has jurisdiction over oil and gas pipelines.
PHMSA is in the news because it has issued a “proposed safety order” for the Mountain Valley Pipeline—the one for which Joe Manchin prostituted his Senate vote in favor of the “Inflation Reduction Act.” The IRA included language mandating the completion of the mostly built but long-delayed pipeline that will move natural gas out of West Virginia, and invoking the rarely-used constitutional power of Congress to strip the federal courts of jurisdiction to hear further legal challenges from environmental groups to litigate still further delays. (Environmentalists had been suing successfully and repeatedly for further environmental impact reviews, which they then sued over on grounds of inadequacy.) The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ignored the plan language of the law, and issued yet another ruling holding up the pipeline, at which point the U.S. Supreme Court said “we are not amused” and swiftly overruled the 4th Circuit, with prejudice.
So, game finally over for the obstructionist enviros, right? Wrong: the PHMSA “proposed safety order” is concerned that “conditions may exist along the Mountain Valley Pipeline that “pose a pipeline integrity risk to public safety, property, or the environment” and “may present immediate risk if the pipeline is commissioned without remediation.” The safety notice states that the regulator’s concerns “require a comprehensive evaluation to identify and remediate integrity issues, mitigate the risk, and protect public safety, property, and the environment.”
In other words, conduct what amounts to yet another new environmental impact review, which, since it is through this new agency finding, will be subject to further litigation when environmentalists inevitably find it “inadequate.”
Here’s my favorite part of the story:
The proposed safety notice issued Aug. 11 states that construction delays on the project, which has been under construction since 2018, resulted in some sections of steel pipe being exposed to the elements for extended periods of time, uncovered and stacked in piles above ground, before being buried underground. The polymer coating that protects the pipe from corrosion is prone to degradation from exposure to ultraviolet radiation from the sun.
And why were there “construction delays on the project”? Everyone knows the answer to this: the federal government itself, by indulging every environmentalist objection in court or before the agency. So let’s see if I have this straight: Government to the pipeline company—”You need to do a whole new review and put up with further delay in construction because of previous delays that we caused.”
Since mug shots are on the news these days, here’s to hoping for mass mug shots of certain kinds of government officials beginning in January 2025. Start with everyone in Maui, but then get on to the main business in Washington.
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