NTSB -- NTSB SAFETY RECOMMENDATION P-11-4 through -7

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NTSB SAFETY RECOMMENDATION

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National Transportation Safety Board

Washington, DC 20594

September 26, 2011

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Safety Recommendation P-11-4 through -7

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The National Transportation Safety Board makes the following safety recommendations to the U.S. Secretary of Transportation:

Conduct an audit to assess the effectiveness of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s oversight of performance-based safety programs. This audit should address the (1) need to expand the program’s use of meaningful metrics; (2) adequacy of its inspection protocols for ensuring the completeness and accuracy of pipeline operators’ integrity management program data; (3) adequacy of its inspection protocols for ensuring the incorporation of an operator’s leak, failure, and incident data in evaluations of the operator’s risk model; and (4) benefits of establishing performance goals for pipeline operators. (P-11-4)

Include in the audit conducted pursuant to Safety Recommendation P-11-4 a review of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s enforcement policies and procedures, including, specifically, the standard of review for compliance with performance-based regulations. (P-11-5)

Conduct an audit of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s state pipeline safety program certification program to assess and ensure state pipeline safety programs and Federal pipeline safety grants are used effectively to conduct oversight of intrastate pipeline operations, including an evaluation of state inspection and enforcement activities. (P-11-6)

Ensure that the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration amends the certification program, as appropriate, to comply with the findings of the audit recommended in Safety Recommendation P-11-6. (P-11-7)

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http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/recletters/2011/P-11-004-007.pdf

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The complete recommendation letter is available on the Web

at the URL indicated above.

The letter is in the Portable Document Format (PDF) and can

be read using the Acrobat Reader 5.0 or later from Adobe

(http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html).

An archive of recommendation letters is available at

http://www.ntsb.gov/recs/letters/letters.htm.

Electronic versions of letters may or may not include enclosures; however, related publications, accident

briefs, and aviation accident synopses may be found

on the NTSB website.

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