A new rule approved by the Arizona Corporation Commission Nov. 23 gives the state more control over intrastate pipelines transporting flammable liquids or gas than the federal government has over similar interstate pipelines.

“The goal has always been the same — safer pipelines,” Commissioner Jeff Hatch-Miller said. “We’re giving our pipeline safety division a bigger toolbox for inspectors.”

The rule change requires tests on a broken pipeline — at the pipeline operator’s expense — by an independent laboratory selected by the Corporation Commission if the cause of the break is not caused by “obvious corrosion, construction [or a] visible case of failure.” Independent tests also are triggered if the state’s Office of Pipeline Safety does not agree with the company’s explanation for the break, or there is an injury, death, property damage or a media request about the incident.

The pipeline operator will be able to suggest the number and type of tests, but the commission will have the final say. The operator also has the right to test the pipeline at a different laboratory than the one the commission chooses, in addition to the test by the independent lab, if there is enough damaged pipeline to permit additional testing.

The change, an amendment to the administrative law under which the commission operates, will take effect 60 days after the Attorney General certifies it and transmits it to the secretary of state.

“I think this amendment is an important step forward in pipeline safety,” Commissioner Kris Mayes said. “I think we’re making real strides in passing these rules.”

Currently, the pipeline operator chooses the lab that performs tests on a broken intrastate pipeline, which is the same as the federal standard for interstate pipelines such as the Kinder Morgan that broke in July 2003 in Tucson.

Several commissioners cited the Kinder Morgan pipeline rupture as the impetus for this amendment.

Lessons From Summer Of 2003

“I think the Kinder Morgan pipeline rupture in Tucson taught us a lot,” Ms. Kris Mayes said. “We are responding to the lessons of July 30, 2003.”

Ms. Mayes said she was angered in the days after the break when she learned the state did not have the right to conduct independent tests.

“I thought that was outrageous,” she said.

Ms. Mayes said the Commission protested and was able to persuade the federal government to allow Arizona to perform tests on the broken pieces of pipeline. She said that was the first time in U.S. history a state was allowed to conduct independent tests of a ruptured interstate pipeline.

In order to prevent a similar situation in the future, the Commission began to contemplate what could be done at a state level.

“The break in the line in Tucson put a fire under us,” Mr. Hatch-Miller said.

The result was this amendment.

“This is, at least in part, an outgrowth of what occurred in Tucson,” Ms. Mayes said.

The amendment also modifies the chain of custody for evidence in a pipeline break, something Ms. Mayes said was a problem in the 2003 Kinder Morgan break.

“As a regulator and as an investigator, you want to have control over the evidence,” she said. “Under these rules, the operator has to tell the Arizona Corporation Commission how evidence is stored, where and when it is shipped out.”

Commissioner Bill Mundell said the state needs to press the federal government to adopt a similar amendment for interstate pipelines; Ms. Mayes said she has spoken with Sen. John McCain about introducing just such legislation in Congress this session.

The end result of this amendment, Ms. Mayes said, is that the Corporation Commission will be able to regulate intrastate pipelines better to make the public safer.

“Arizonans will be assured that pipeline companies will no longer control the testing of intrastate pipelines,” she said. —