Page images
PDF
EPUB

records, you do not require them to keep the X-rays, you do not require anything beyond the fact that they have a record in which they say they did everything right.

I really cannot imagine a pipeline company coming in saying they did not lay the pipe correctly.

Mr. CALDWELL. I think you may have misinterpreted what I said. You asked the question how many full-time people we have monitoring. I answered two in a five-State area. The remaining States are monitored to the degree possible with the rest of our staff.

Our staff's primary mission, by direction of the Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Act, during the first 2 years has been to devote primarily its full attention to the development of a basis set of regulations. You have to have regulations before you can check for compliance. We are now getting into the area of monitoring and checking for compliance.

Senator HARTKE. General Davis, or whoever wants to answer this, you mentioned you rely heavily on the Technical Pipeline Safety Standards Committee for advice and recommendations.

Do you have any formal agreements with any other groups concerning preparedness or regulations?

Mr. DAVIS. No, sir.

Senator HARTKE. What about the American Society of Mechanical Engineers?

Mr. DAVIS. A representative from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers has called on me, sir. He has made me aware of what they do.

Another office that I am interested in works with them. We use their standards.

But to the best of my knowledge, sir, we have no formal agreement with them.

Senator HARTKE. Mr. Caldwell, would you like to say that you do have one?

Mr. CALDWELL. No, sir. I would support what the General said. We do not have a formal

Senator HARTKE. Did you have?

Mr. CALDWELL. No, sir; we never did have a formal agreement such as is established with the Technical Pipeline Safety Standards Committee.

There has been some correspondence between myself and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. They have, after our regulations were published, reorganized in an effort to be more responsive to the development of guidelines for carrying out our performance standards.

There was some correspondence between that organization and myself, but you certainly couldn't call it a formal agreement or arrange

ment.

We do have close liaison with the group, and obviously, if they were going to develop guidelines to meet our performance standards, it certainly behooves both of us to agree that it is a method of carrying out-not the sole method, but one method of carrying out or meeting our requirements.

Senator HARTKE. But you wrote to them on September 18, 1970, as follows:

This is to confirm the agreement between the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Office of Pipeline Safety as detailed in your letter of August 7, 1970, to Mr. William C. Jennings, the then acting director of the office. A copy of the items of agreement is enclosed.

Among those agreements is one provision which says:

OST will publish a notice of proposed rulemaking and request public comment on any regulatory action which is formally recommended by ASME.

Isn't that a rather privileged position for an organization which is not officially a part of the Government?

Mr. CALDWELL. No, sir; it is certainly not.

We will publish for consideration for rulemaking any recommendation submitted by anyone that we want or feel is appropriate.

ASME is a committee-type organization, and this correspondence, as I referred to, is an effort to insure that their committee had an understanding of what their leaders or whoever the key people in the ASME were trying to accomplish.

Senator HARTKE. You refer to it as an agreement, do you not, Mr. Caldwell?

Mr. CALDWELL. Yes, sir.

Senator HARTKE. And do you not also say in item 4 of that agreement that:

OST will invite ASME's participation in preparing proposed regulations by regular contact between the respective staffs?

Mr. CALDWELL. Yes, sir.

Senator HARTKE. Is that not, in other words, a favored position by a group of people who are primarily either directly or indirectly employed by the pipeline companies themselves; isn't that true?

Mr. CALDWELL. No, sir. It did not put them in any different position than any other organization.

Senator HARTKE. Who else has that type of position?

Mr. CALDWELL. There is no other organization

Senator HARTKE. What other organization? What consumer organization has a right to participate, for example? Who do you talk to as to them?

Mr. CALDWELL. Any consumer organization

Senator HARTKE. Do you have an agreement like this with anybody else?

Mr. CALDWELL. No, sir.

Senator HARTKE. Is this not the successor of the voluntary organization that put together regulation B-31.8?

Mr. CALDWELL. It is basically the same organization that developed the basic B-31.8 standards.

Senator HARTKE. They really in substance opposed this legislation, did they not?

Mr. CALDWELL. Yes, sir.

Senator HARTKE. They opposed this legislation. Now you have entered into an agreement with an organization which opposed this legislation. Isn't that a rather remarkable thing for a Government agency to be doing?

Mr. CALDWELL. Sir, two points. One, the word "agreement," and I will have to agree that it was used-I want to state it was used in a generic sense and was probably a poor choice of words on my part. This

is not an exclusive agreement by any means. It was a matter of putting on paper what the ASME wanted their organization to do.

Senator HARTKE. Why should the Office of Pipeline Safety go ahead and propose any regulation that ASME would suggest? Why should it be as a matter of course that you will agree in advance that you will do that?

Mr. CALDWELL. Sir, you have to look at the organization-
Senator HARTKE. It is an industry group, is it not?

Mr. CALDWELL. No, sir; it is not completely an industry group. Senator HARTKE. Tell me who are not a member of industry in that group?

Mr. CALDWELL. There are members of the Federal Government, there are members of State governments, and there are members of suppliers, manufacturers, consultants.

Senator HARTKE. Who is the member of the Federal Government on there?

Mr. CALDWELL. There is a gentleman by the name of Mr. Lewis Mendonsa from the Federal Power Commission.

Senator HARTKE. Bureau of Natural Gas, Federal Power Commission, he is one; is that right?

Mr. CALDWELL. Yes, sir.

Senator HARTKE. Who else?

Mr. CALDWELL. The Coast Guard has one member. I do not know the

name.

Senator HARTKE. How many people are on this committee?
Mr. CALDWELL. Sir, I have no idea.

Senator HARTKE. We will make this all a part of the record. Just for the sake of the record, I will run down: Crane Co., Brooklyn Union Gas, Northern Natural Gas Co., Stephen Bergman, Gulf Interstate, Southern California Gas, Consolidated Gas Pipeline, Transcontinental Gas Pipeline, two of them, Columbia Gas System, Northwest Natural Gas, Southern California Gas, El Paso Natural Gas, Columbia Gas. It is an industry group.

(The letters follow :)

Mr. ALLEN F. RHODES,

OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION,
Washington, D.C., September 18, 1970.

President, American Society of Mechanical Engineers,
New York, N.Y.

DEAR MR. RHODES: This is to confirm the agreement between the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Office of Pipeline Safety as detailed in your letter of August 7, 1970, to Mr. William C. Jennings the then Acting Director of this Office. (A copy of the items of agreement is enclosed.)

I feel that this action will assist each of our respective organizations to fulfill our responsibilities.

Sincerely,

Enclosure.

JOSEPH C. CALDWELL,

Acting Director, Office of Pipeline Safety.

ITEMS OF AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERS AND THE OFFICE OF PIPELINE SAFETY, DOT

1. OST will encourage the publication by ASME of the Federal regulations in a document that will incorporate the design, rules, material references and

71-018-72-5

other recommended practices of the ASME code, appropriately arranged and referenced to the regulations.

2. OST will publish a notice of proposed rulemaking and request public comment on any regulatory action which is formally recommended by ASME (Mr. Jennings stated that the professional standing of the participants in ASME committee work justified this procedure.)

3. OST will invite ASME comment on requests for approval of processes, procedures, or materials to be used under the regulations, and will consider the ASME reply in making a ruling on the request.

4. OST will invite ASME participation in preparing proposed regulations by regular contact between the respective staffs.

5. OST will put the ASME code committee members on its mailing list for all public information regarding pipeline safety activities.

6. OST will furnish ASME the leak and failure-reporting information routinely developed and will cooperate in developing special studies of information in the data collection system.

7. ASME will review the operation of its pipeline code committee and its relationship with other organizations such as ANSI to ensure conformance to its safety code policy.

8. ASME will study and revise, if necessary, the pipeline code committee practices regarding documentation of, and the public record of, the background material supporting committee action on proposals for code changes and recommendations for changes, which would require changing the OST regulations. 9. ASME will put OST on its mailing list of all information which goes to the liquid pipeline and gas pipeline code committees. SECTION COMMITTEE B31.8 GAS TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION PIPING SYSTEMS SECTION COMMITTEE, B-31.8-GAS TRANSMISSION

AND DISTRIBUTION PIPING

[blocks in formation]

Chester Anderson, Crane Company, 4100 South Kedzie Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60632.

M. W. Anuskiewicz, Jr., The Brooklyn Union Gas Company, 195 Montague Street, Brooklyn, New York 11201.

P. H. Awtrey, Walworth Company, P.O. Box 758, Greensburg, Pennsylvania 15601.

Jack Baker, Northern Natural Gas Company, 2223 Dodge Street, Omaha, Nebraska 68101.

S. A. Bergman, Stephen A. Bergman Inc., 3606 West 95 Street, Leawood, Kansas 66206.

N. F. Blundell, Gulf Interstate Engineering Company, P.O. Box 1916, Houston, Texas 77001.

A. Bradfield, Southern California Gas Company, P.O. Box 3249 Terminal Annex, Los Angeles, California 90054.

J. H. Carson, Consolidated Natural Gas Service Co., Inc., Four Gateway Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15222.

1 Members listed as of date of letter ballot for this revision.

J. A. Casner, The Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company, P.O. Box 900, Youngstown, Ohio 44501.

O. W. Clark, Southern Natural Gas Company, P.O. Box 2563, Birmingham, Alabama 35202.

A. H. Cramer, Michigan Consolidated Gas Company, One Woodward Avenue, Detroit, Michigan 48226.

R. H. Crowe, Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Corporation, P.O. Box 1396, Houston, Texas 77001.

P. L. Daley, United States Steel Corporation, 525 William Penn Place, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15230.

W. H. Davidson, Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Corporation, P.O. Box 1396, Houston, Texas 77001.

W. C. Day, Columbia Gas System Service Corporation, 1600 Dublin Road, Columbus, Ohio 43212.

A. J. Del Buono, Taylor Force Inc., P.O. Box 485, Chicago, Illinois.

H. M. Dwight, Northwest Natural Gas Company, 123 N.W. Flanders Street, Portland, Oregon 97209.

Dye, Southern California Gas Company, P.O. Box 3249 Terminal Annex, Los Angeles, California 90054.

Eichelmann, El Paso Natural Gas Company, P.O. Box 1492, El Paso, Texas

79999.

L. Elder, Columbia Gas System Service Corporation, 1600 Dublin Road, Columbus, Ohio 43212.

O. D. Fink, Laclede Gas Company, 3950 Forest Park Boulevard, St. Louis, Missouri 63108.

G. F. Fratcher, A. O. Smith Corporation, Building 65, P.O. Box 584, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201.

H. H. George, Tube Turns Division, Chemetron Corporation, P.O. Box 987, Louisville, Kentucky 40201.

J. L. Gere, Cities Service Gas Company, P.O. Box 25198, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73125.

M. D. Gwinn, Consumers Power Company, 212 West Michigan Avenue, Jackson, Michigan 49201.

W. B. Haas, Northern Natural Gas Company, 2228 Dodge Street, Omaha, Nebraska 68101.

L. F. Hanna, Panhandle Eastern Pipe Line Company, P.O. Box 1348, Kansas City, Missouri 64141.

W. P. Heineman, United Gas Pipe Line Company, P.O. Box 1407, Shreveport, Louisiana 71102.

C. A. Henrikson, United States Pipe & Foundry Company, 3300 First Avenue North, Birmingham, Alabama 35202.

E. H. Holstead, Texas Canada Pipe Lines, Ltd., 150 Eglinton Avenue, East, Toronto 12, Ontario, Canada.

F. A. Hough, Bechtel Corporation, P.O. Box 3965, San Francisco, California 94119.

E. V. Hunt, 2005 Hercules Dr., Colorado Springs, Colorado 80906.

L. B. Inglis, Jr., American Gas Association, Inc., 605 Third Avenue, New York, New York 10016.

E. J. Jandacek, Texas Gas Transmission Corporation, 3800 Frederica Street, Owensboro, Kentucky 42301.

T. M. Jenkins,

nia 94116.

Corp. Pipeline Div., 220 Bush St., San Francisco, Califor

C. R. Johnson, Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, 111 North High Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215.

E. A. Jonas, Bethlehem Steel Company, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 18016.

C. I. Kallina, Washington Gas Light Company, 1100 H Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005.

R. P. Lynch, The Peoples Gas Light and Coke Company, 122 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60603.

A. I. MacDonald, Kaiser Steel Corporation, P.O. Box 217, Fontana, California 92336.

B. T. Mast, Consultant, Suite 204, 3130 Southwest Freeway, Houston, Texas 77006.

Charles Maxwell, State of Michigan, Public Service Commission, Lansing, Michigan 48913.

G. M. McClure, Battelle Memorial Institute, 505 King Avenue, Columbus, Ohio

« PreviousContinue »