Securing America's Future Energy: Protecting Our Infrastructure of Pipelines and Enhancing Safety Act

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MILLER of Michigan. I thank the chairman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I certainly rise in strong support of this legislation, which really includes some critical protections for one of our Nation's most precious assets. And that, of course, is the Great Lakes, which has 20 percent of our Nation's freshwater drinking supply, as well as it provides hundreds of jobs and billions of dollars of economic activity.

Today, there are millions of gallons per day of hazardous liquids which are transported through a number of lines in the Great Lakes. Mr. Speaker, we absolutely need energy in all transparency. We need the energy, but we need to make sure that we are transiting in a very safe and environmentally secure way because there is zero room for error in the Great Lakes.

There is a 62-year-old pipeline that is called line 5 that runs under the Straits of Mackinac, which is right in between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. Any rupture there would be very, very difficult, if not impossible, to contain. This bill has a number of provisions in regards to line 5, for instance, that would conduct internal integrity assessments at least once a year.

This bill also designates the Great Lakes as a USA ecological resource, which is very important.

As well, it also makes sure that we have emergency spill response plans if, in the case of ice coverage, which really considers the unique environment of the Great Lakes.

In regards to Enbridge, there is also a line 6B which runs under the Saint Clair River, which is in my district. A number of years ago--and Chairman Upton was talking about this particular line that had a spill just outside of his district--but this part of 6B runs under something called the Saint Clair River, again, a very environmentally sensitive artery for the Great Lakes.

We talked to Enbridge. And long story short, they came to the right conclusion there. They actually completely replaced almost 3,600 feet of this pipeline under the Saint Clair River. So they did the right thing there. They had been reluctant to address that.

Again, we need the energy, Mr. Speaker, but we need to make sure that we are transiting energy in a very safe way and in an environmentally sensitive way. I think this bill today goes a long way to address many of the concerns that we have had in the Great Lakes.

I thank Chairman Denham again for yielding the time and for taking these issues into consideration.

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