Senator Blocks Pipeline Safety Bill, Opposing 'Massive New Regulations'

A Republican senator has come under fire for blocking federal pipeline safety legislation proposed to prevent future accidents similar to the Sept. 9, 2010, pipeline explosion in San Bruno, which left eight people dead and 38 homes destroyed. 

Sen. Rand Paul, R-KY, a Tea Party conservative, has been the only senator to block the regulation, saying that he is willing to hold a debate with other senators on the measure but that he is opposed to any new regulations that create more bureaucracy in government, according to media reports. 

According to The Huffington Post, a number of senators are perplexed why Paul decided to put a hold on the bill, the Pipeline Transportation Safety Improvement Act of 2011, especially because it has bipartisan support and is backed by safety and industry groups, including the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America. 

"I believe legislation should have open debate and votes. It need not take weeks. Certainly we could spend an afternoon for the people's elected representatives to discuss whether they got massive new regulations," Paul said, according to the Huffington Post. 

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, blasted Paul for putting his personal ideologies before the people whose lives could be at risk if the pipeline industry wasn’t properly strengthened. 

The bill, prompted by last year’s deadly explosion in San Bruno, requires installation of automatic or remote-controlled shutoff valves on new and replaced pipelines but not on existing pipelines—a requirement Speier and California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer originally wanted. 

The Chronicle also reported: 

The legislation passed the Senate Commerce Committee unanimously in May. Given the bill's broad support, Senate Democrats had "hot-lined" it, asking each party's caucus if anyone objected, so that it could be passed quickly by unanimous consent. 

A Democratic aide to the committee said Paul's actions "defied logic....This is a bill that had no objections in committee, no one had an issue with it, it's been teed up ready to move forward since July." The aide said that if every piece of noncontroversial legislation were allowed a floor debate, especially this late in the year, few of them would clear the Senate. 

An opponent of taxes and an ophthalmologist, Paul is the son of Rep. Ron Paul, R-TX, who is running for president, and shares his father’s desire to shrink the role of federal government.