The Obama administration today sought a 40 percent funding bump for pipeline safety in its 2013 budget, putting his oil and gas transportation agency in line to become a lone beneficiary of bipartisan support for more investment in federal regulation.

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) would receive $248 million for the fiscal year that begins in October under the White House's new plan, up from $172 million in the previous year. Grants to state pipeline overseers would increase by 50 percent as the administration begins to implement a safety bill that cleared Congress overwhelmingly last year.

The White House budget office described its new infusion for PHMSA -- which took on outsized importance in 2010 amid an 800,000-gallon oil leak in Michigan and a fatal gas line rupture in California -- as aimed at building "a more robust, rigorous and data-driven" safety system, including a three-year plan to double the number of federal inspectors.

The pipeline oversight deal that Democrats, Republicans, safety advocates and the oil industry crafted last year, however, authorized a smaller hiring of 10 new full-time inspectors after PHMSA reported on its staffing needs to Congress and filled the 135 openings on its staff. PHMSA chief Cynthia Quarterman told reporters today that the agency’s request would amount to a total multiyear addition of 120 inspectors, adding that she hoped to win over lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

The December pipeline safety authorization bill “does not necessarily mean that this is the final number,” she said. “Appropriators have the authority to increase funding as they deem appropriate.”

PHMSA’s budget bump, which rises above 60 percent relative to last year for its safety-specific accounts, also would pay for the establishment of an official accident investigations unit, training money, and $8 million for a nationwide pipeline information exchange “that will better inform our efforts to locate and rehabilitate aging infrastructure," Quarterman said today.

Last year’s pipeline legislation also empowered PHMSA to embark on new regulatory efforts addressing leak detection, integrity management and smaller "gathering" lines increasingly popular in rural areas where oil and gas production is booming, but also requires communication with Congress as the agency proceeds (E&E Daily, Dec. 14).