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Lawmakers call for investigation of pipeline company after deadly explosion

Smoke rises from the site of an explosion on the Colonial Pipeline in Helena, AL. CREDIT: AP/Brynn Anderson
Smoke rises from the site of an explosion on the Colonial Pipeline in Helena, AL. CREDIT: AP/Brynn Anderson

“This is an unacceptable situation.”

A number of House Democrats on Wednesday called for an investigation into the company that owns a pipeline in Alabama that exploded earlier this week killing one person, injuring five others, and prompting a spike in gasoline prices along the East Coast.

Rep. Frank Pallone (NJ), ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Peter DeFazio (OR), ranking member of the Transportation Committee, and three other lawmakers sent a letter to the Department of Transportation asking officials to investigate Colonial Pipeline Company.

“This is an unacceptable situation, and we are concerned that the number, frequency, and severity of significant incidents on Colonial’s system over the past five years could be symptomatic of severe underlying problems with the system and the company’s management of that system,” the lawmakers wrote. They also noted that the accident was the “third major incident on Colonial’s system in just over a year and the seventh in less than five years.”

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On Monday, a Colonial gasoline pipeline that is a major supply source for the East Coast exploded when the pipeline was struck with a backhoe, the company said. The blast, which prompted a 3-mile radius evacuation order, happened a mile from where the same line suffered a massive leak in September. In that occasion, at least 250,000 gallons of gasoline were spilled.

The pipeline explosion occurred on Monday. The blast, which sent flames and thick black smoke soaring over the forest, happened about a mile west of where the pipeline ruptured in September. CREDIT: AP/Brynn Anderson
The pipeline explosion occurred on Monday. The blast, which sent flames and thick black smoke soaring over the forest, happened about a mile west of where the pipeline ruptured in September. CREDIT: AP/Brynn Anderson

The pipeline is now shut, and Colonial said the earliest the line might reopen is Saturday. “Our top priorities continue to be ensuring the safety and well being of responders,” Colonial said in a statement. As of Wednesday, “no observable impacts have been noted on nearby waterways or drainage paths.”

Monday’s blast sparked a fire that burned at least 32 acres of surrounding forest.

Colonial Pipeline is one of the largest-volume pipeline transporters of refined petroleum products in the world. It provides gasoline for some 50 million people from Texas to New York.

In 2003, Colonial agreed to pay $34 million — then the largest civil penalty a company has paid in EPA history — for spilling 1.4 million gallons of oil from a 5,500 mile pipeline system. The settlement covered oil spills that affected five states in the late 1990s.

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Monday’s blast took place as an anti-pipeline movement across the country, which gained widespread recognition with the anti-Keystone XL movement, has been re-energized by Native Americans in North Dakota now opposing the Dakota Access pipeline, a line that would cross four Midwestern states.

But it also comes as gasoline consumption in the United States has reversed its downward trend and gone to record highs.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that average daily gasoline consumption in June was the highest ever, breaking records set in 2007. This June the country on average consumed 9.7 million barrels of gasoline daily.

Motorists in parts of the country could pay a little more for gasoline in coming days because of the shutdown of the Colonial pipeline. CREDIT: AP/LM Otero
Motorists in parts of the country could pay a little more for gasoline in coming days because of the shutdown of the Colonial pipeline. CREDIT: AP/LM Otero

Driven by an improving economy and by low gas prices related to the rise in hydraulic fracturing, U.S. car habits are going back to what they were a decade ago, before the Great Recession. Collectively, U.S. drivers went 6.4 percent more miles this summer than they did in the summer of 2007, according to the EIA. And they aren’t much more efficient. Low gas prices have disincentivized consumer investment in cars with high gas mileage, and sports utility vehicle purchases have been on the rise.

A growing demand for — and continuing reliance on — gasoline may be good business for the oil industry, but it also means efforts to address greenhouse gases and deadly air pollution may be seriously hindered at a time when scientists are saying the majority of fossil fuels need to remain unburned.

The United States is the second largest greenhouse gas polluter in the world, topped only by China, which has been aggressively turning to renewable energy in recent years.