DCA Launches Campaign to Protect Role of Natural Gas, Address Damage Prevention Programs

For the past few years, DCA has worked with a broad coalition of stakeholders interested in preserving the important role of natural gas as a critical American energy source.  While many attacks are coming out of the U.S. Congress, the real fight has been and continues to be within the states.  A few years ago, only a handful of states were engaged in the battle between policies that would phase out or restrict access to natural gas.  At this point, only eight states are not debating this issue, and there is a lot at stake.

Using its grassroots advocacy tool, DCA will continue to engage in the natural gas debate as states continue to struggle over whether natural gas will be afforded to American consumers and how much access will be provided.  The good news is that “fuel choice” supporters are winning the battle: Only five states have enacted restrictive measures into law while more than 20 states have enacted fuel choice provisions into their statutes.  The bad news is there is seemingly no end in sight in terms of harmful proposals being introduced in several states.

Therefore, DCA is sending letters to state governors, praising those who have signed fuel choice bills into law, lamenting states that have enacted legislation that will rob citizens of the opportunity to use natural gas in their homes and businesses, and encouraging states with harmful legislation pending to reevaluate.

In its letter, DCA states that “natural gas is delivered to customers across the country through a 2.5-million-mile underground pipeline system, including 2.2 million miles of gas distribution pipelines and 300,000 miles of transmission pipelines.  Despite the enduring attacks on natural gas and the pipelines that transport it, this precious and abundant domestic resource will be needed if the U.S. wants to achieve its lofty clean energy goals.  In fact, natural gas enables use of renewable energy sources.”
The fight to preserve access to natural gas in future building codes is far from over, and with the help of its members, DCA will remain fully engaged in this debate.

Improving Our State Damage Prevention Programs
DCA’s letter to state governments also addresses state damage prevention performance and takes a different approach than traditional evaluations of state programs.

As a member of the Infrastructure Protection Coalition, a coalition of industry groups representing regular users and stakeholders in the 811 system, DCA supports all the findings in IPC’s 811 Emergency Report.  This comprehensive, independent review of the nation’s 811 system includes an in-depth examination of its operations in every state and shows how these costs and increased risks to public safety could be substantially reduced if states adopted more effective practices and procedures that are currently used effectively in many parts of the country.

In its letter, DCA states that adjustments to a state’s “dig law,” as well as related processes and practices, could be addressed by implementing policy adjustments based on national recommendations provided in the 811 Emergency Report.  DCA fully supports the 13 national recommendations included in the report.  National opportunities to improve include:

• No exemptions. Require all asset owners and operators, including municipalities and departments of transportation, to join and participate in the 811 system.
• Mandatory damage reporting. Refine the dig law to require reporting of all damages to all underground utility types to support effective data collection, process improvement, damage adjudication, and enforcement.
• Balanced enforcement. Cause enforcement authority to weigh involvement of all primary participants in a damage incident and, in a fair and balanced fashion. hold the asset owner, excavator, and locator appropriately responsible in the damage adjudication process.
• Third-party enforcement board. Develop or enhance third-party investigation and enforcement boards, with a balanced number of representatives from each stakeholder group, imbued with both responsibility and authority to manage the entire damage adjudication process.
• Standardize minimum notification time. Standardize the ticket notification time to a minimum of two full business days after the day/date of a call.
• Ineffective penalty structure. Bring balance to the penalty structure or amount so that asset owners, excavators, and locators each face similar risks and responsibility.
• Effective metrics. Identify, develop, collect, and track metrics that effectively support trending and continuous improvement of states’ damage prevention performance.  Mandatory reporting is necessary to accomplish this effort.
Develop and track metrics that support behavioral change in addition to metrics designed to track violations of the law.
• Annual reporting to Common Ground Alliance (CGA) and Damage Information Reporting Tool (DIRT). Require state entities responsible for the oversight of the 811 system and collection and adjudication of compliance or damage reports, ticket volumes, etc., to submit data to the CGA to support preparation of the annual DIRT Report.
• Positive response requirement. A web-based electronic positive response requirement by all asset owners / locators through the 811 system.
o Ticket holders can choose how to receive positive response from this electronic system.
• Excavation site accurate description. 
o Pre-mark / white-line requirement: Require pre-mark or white-lining of any proposed excavation area that includes traditional reference to intersecting streets/roadways paired with GPS coordinates or electronic white-line.
o GIS system adoption by asset owners:  By 2030, cause all asset owners to adopt a GIS system for asset mapping and require notification through 811 using GPS coordinates.
• Continuous improvement. Develop a culture of continuous improvement within the 811 system and more broadly through stakeholder education and public outreach programs.
o Standardize ticket size, distance, duration, and life: Standardize the ticket size, distance, duration, and life to the described characteristics.
o Educational resources: Develop and publish electronically an excavator’s manual that is updated and republished every five years or when an update to the law takes place, whichever is more frequent.

State by state, DCA will force conversations regarding these recommendations, leaning hard on the need to eliminate exemptions in damage prevention statues, encouraging balanced enforcement and related penalty structures, and underscoring the need for operators to maintain GIS mapping systems and share the data needed to accurately locate underground facilities.