NEW ORLEANS — President Donald Trump’s unbridled demands for fossil fuel dominance have stirred fear and anger among pipeline critics and safety advocates.
But a longtime regulator, who left the federal pipeline safety agency this year amid Trump’s purges, had a message last week for the worriers: It’ll be OK.
“The professionals are still there,” Alan Mayberry, who had been the top career pipeline safety official at the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, told a conference of safety and environmental advocates. “We have a solid statute that gives us direction to oversee the pipeline industry. The mandate has not changed.”
Many of those attending were not swayed, but Mayberry said the administration’s drive for deregulation offers a chance for “spring cleaning.” PHMSA “thrived” in the first Trump term by removing an underbrush of outdated regulations while advancing new ones, he said. Now, according to Mayberry, the agency has an opportunity to make updates that account for new technology.
