Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act 2015

Floor Speech

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AMENDMENT OFFERED BY MR. GRIFFIN OF ARKANSAS

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

The CHAIR. The Clerk will report the amendment.

The Clerk read as follows:

Page 48, line 5, after the dollar amount, insert ``(reduced by $500,000)''.

Page 57, line 16, after the first dollar amount, insert ``(increased by $500,000)''.

The CHAIR. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Mr. Chairman, I want to begin by thanking Chairman Latham.

Mr. LATHAM. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I yield to the gentleman from Iowa.

Mr. LATHAM. We accept the amendment.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I want to, again, thank Chairman Latham, who has made this possible, working with his staff. I want to thank all the bipartisan support for this amendment from Mr. Kind, Mr. Walz, and Mr. Terry, as well as my staff.

I want to acknowledge the success that this builds on from the omnibus bill passed earlier this year, which incorporated my amendment from the FY14 T-HUD bill to increase funding for DOT's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, or PHMSA, over lower priority programs.

Mr. Chairman, on March 29, 2014, the ExxonMobil Pegasus pipeline in Mayflower, Arkansas, the Second Congressional District, suffered a catastrophic accidental rupture.

It inundated nearby homes and businesses with thousands of gallons of spilled oil. I am committed to making things right for the people of Mayflower and ensuring that another spill never occurs again in Arkansas.

PHMSA is the Federal Government's primary agency for regulating and ensuring the safe and secure movement of oil and petroleum products to industry and consumers through America's interstate pipelines. As an interstate pipeline, the inspection of the Pegasus pipeline was and is PHMSA's responsibility.

Pipelines move nearly two-thirds of the oil and petroleum products transported annually. Interstate pipelines deliver over 11.3 billion barrels of petroleum each year. The cost to transport a barrel of petroleum products from Houston to the New York Harbor is about a dollar.

American pipelines are, without question, the safest way to move oil, and ensuring the safe operation of pipelines that move oil from one State to another is unquestionably a necessary function of the Federal Government.

Although the amount of oil spilled from these pipelines is a minimal fraction of what we safely transport every day throughout the country, there is more we can do to ensure they are operated safely.

My amendment would increase the budget for PHMSA's operational expenses by $500,000 to further ensure the safety of our Nation's pipeline, and it will be taking this money from another account.

This appropriation finances the operational support costs for PHMSA and will help keep these pipelines and the communities like Mayflower that surround them safe from other tragic but preventable accidents, without spending additional dollars.

I ask that the House support this amendment.

I thank the chairman for supporting this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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