As a thousand-barrel oil spill from a burst Montana pipeline drives new momentum for safety legislation, GOP objections are delaying a Senate measure strengthening regulation of U.S. oil and gas lines that moved to the floor with unanimous support two months ago.

Senate Democrats moved to "hotline" the upper chamber's pipeline safety bill last week, but it remains in limbo thanks to one or more anonymous Republican holds. The stall comes despite broad support for the pipeline plan from industry groups and the backing of every Commerce committee Republican during the bill's May markup.

"It's incomprehensible," Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), a Commerce subpanel chief and the bill's lead sponsor, said of the delay. "However, a lot of things are incomprehensible around here. ... We're going to continue to fight."

The pipeline legislation at issue would hike the maximum civil fines that the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration can issue to companies found in violation of its rules, while empowering the agency to hire more inspectors and overruling many local "one call" exemptions to rules aimed at preventing excavation damage to the nation's 2 million-plus miles of oil and gas pipelines (E&E Daily, Feb. 4).

Yet none of those provisions appears to be stoking GOP questions about quick passage of the bill. Those concerns stem from a "flawed" Congressional Budget Office estimate of the measure that scores it as carrying a $46 million price tag, according to a pipeline industry source granted anonymity to speak candidly.

The Senate bill authorizes safety programs for three years, but its CBO score assumes a five-year time horizon that does not take into account the full extent of projected revenue from user fees to be levied on pipeline operators, the industry source explained.

Under a Senate rules reform package approved earlier this year, any member placing a hold is required to disclose his or her identity within two days. Yet avenues still exist to shield the identity of any senator who declines to do so, and Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) said yesterday that the pipeline safety hold is "rolling," effectively being passed among several Republicans.

Passage of the pipeline bill is "incredibly important," Rockefeller said.

Though oil and gas interests as well as safety advocates evinced qualms with certain provisions of the bill following its passage, the Commerce measure earned broad praise as a step forward on strengthening PHMSA's enforcement powers in the wake of several high-profile pipeline ruptures in recent months.

Before the estimated thousand-barrel spill of crude July 1 along a Montana pipeline owned by Exxon Mobil Corp., the safety debate flared last year following a Michigan pipeline rupture along Enbridge Energy Partners' Midwestern network and a natural gas line break that killed eight residents of a San Francisco suburb.

On the House side, Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) vowed last week to advance a pipeline safety plan through his panel soon after the August recess (Greenwire, July 15). His committee shares jurisdiction over the issue with the House Transportation & Infrastructure panel, however, adding a potential new hurdle in the form of more lawmakers seeking to weigh in on new pipeline rules.