Pipeline Safety, Regulatory Certainty, and Job Creation Act of 2011
Latest action. Became public lawWhat a bill becomes when enacted, numbered by Congress and order of enactment: Public Law 119-4 is the 4th law of the 119th Congress.Read the full definition (opens a new tab) No: 112-90.
Pipeline Safety, Regulatory Certainty, and Job Creation Act of 2011 - (Sec. 2) Increases civil penalties on an oil, natural gas, or hazardous liquid pipeline facility operator for failure to: (1) mark accurately the location of pipeline facilities in the vicinity of a demolition, excavation, tunneling, or construction; (2) use first a one-call notification system to establish the location of underground facilities in such an area; or (3) comply with safety standards and related requirements, including for inspections, maintenance, risk analysis, and adoption of an integrity management program.
Authorizes the Secretary of Transportation (DOT) to impose a civil penalty for obstruction or prevention of inspections or investigations.
Eliminates: (1) the cap on civil penalties for administrative enforcement actions regarding pipeline safety, and (2) judicial review of any denial of an application for waiver of certain safety requirements.
(Sec. 3) Conditions a state's eligibility for one-call notification and damage prevention program grants on its not providing exemptions to municipalities, state agencies, or their contractors from one-call notification system requirements.
Directs the Secretary to study the impact of excavation damage on pipeline safety.
(Sec. 4) Directs the Secretary to require by regulation the use of automatic or remote-controlled shut-off valves, or equivalent technology, on new or entirely replaced transmission pipeline facilities.
Directs the Comptroller General to study the ability of transmission pipeline operators to respond to a hazardous liquid or gas release from a pipeline segment in a high-consequence area.
(Sec. 5) Directs the Secretary to evaluate whether: (1) integrity management system requirements should be expanded beyond high-consequence areas; and (2) application of integrity management program requirements for gas transmission pipeline facilities to additional areas would mitigate the need for class location requirements.
Requires the Secretary, after a period of congressional review of such evaluation, but only if certain findings are made, to issue regulations to: (1) expand integrity management system requirements, or elements of them, beyond high-consequence areas; and (2) remove redundant class location requirements for gas transmission pipeline facilities regulated under an integrity management program.
The summary continues for 37 more paragraphs. Read it in full on Congress.gov
Written by analysts at the Congressional Research Service and published on Congress.gov, not by Civibrief. Summarized at the "Public Law" stage on January 3, 2012. It describes the bill, it is not the legal text.
Where is it in the process, and what happens next?
This bill has been enacted. It is law.
The record's latest action, on January 3, 2012: Became Public Law No: 112-90.
Has anyone actually voted on it?
No. No roll call in this Congress cites this measure. That is the ordinary outcome: most measures never reach a recorded floor vote, and a committee ends most of them simply by not acting.
A vote is not the only thing that happens to a measure. Hearings, markups, and referrals are all recorded actions, and none of them is a vote of the full chamber.
Who is behind it?
Bill Shuster (R-PA) introduced it on September 7, 2011, and 1 member has since signed on as a cosponsor.
They are 1 Republican.
Cosponsoring is a formal signature on the text. It is not a commitment to vote for the measure, it does not bind anyone's party, and a long list of cosponsors is a measure of attention rather than of prospects.
Every answer above is assembled from this measure's own record on Congress.gov and from published counts of what Congress has passed before. Civibrief does not predict outcomes and takes no position on any measure.
Vote history
- HousePassed
- SenatePassed
- PresidentSigned into law