Today, I have signed into law S. 1505, the "Accountable Pipeline Safety and Partnership Act," a law that will protect public safety and the environment and help create a government that works better and costs less.
This bipartisan bill will improve pipeline safety and provide the Department with the flexibility to develop innovative approaches to pipeline safety regulations.
To ensure that the bill is carried out in a way that protects public safety and the environment, I am directing the Department of Transportation to put in place certain safeguards for implementation of the bill's risk management provisions. I note that the bill's risk assessment and cost-benefit provisions codify current Department of Transportation practices and, as Senators Glenn and Levin have made clear, are not to have any precedential effect for other programs.
The Department also will ensure that risk management demonstration projects—new experiments in how to achieve safe pipelines— are approved only for superior performance by companies with a clear and established safety record. In addition, the Department will ensure that its programs protect all of our natural environment.
WILLIAM J. CLINTON
The White House, October 12, 1996.
NOTE: S. 1505, approved October 12, was assigned Public Law No. 104-304.
William J. Clinton, Statement on Signing the Accountable Pipeline Safety and Partnership Act of 1996 Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/288570