As technology improves, law and regulation must improve for the sake of public safety. Excavation damage has been a leading – and in many years the leading – cause of pipeline incidents for decades. More than ten years ago, Congress addressed what was then the leading contributor to these incidents…
What is Innovation? No one really seems to know. Few can agree on a comprehensive definition because it means different things in different contexts. But most definitions align on three points. For an idea to be innovative (1) the idea must be new, (2) the idea must create value, and…
Defining Infrastructure To engage in comprehensive and intelligent discussion regarding our nation’s infrastructure policy, we first need to be thoughtful about what qualifies as “infrastructure.” There is no unanimously adopted definition of infrastructure across sectors or policy lexicon. Many definitions describe “infrastructure” as the physical components of various systems that…
Last June, Congress passed and the President signed the Protecting our Infrastructure of Pipelines and Enhancing Safety Act of 2016 (PIPES Act). Among the bill’s numerous other provisions was a hidden gem. Congress asked the Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration (PHMSA) to conduct a study on how new technologies…
How Economic Indicators And Population Demographics Impact Incident Rates “Digging Deeper” is the Alliance for Innovation and Infrastructure’s (Aii) new blog series focused on using the Common Ground Alliance’s Damage Information Reporting Tool’s (DIRT) inaugural interactive data dashboard to track indicators, trends, and correlations with the goal of zeroing in…
On July 12, we published “Building a Smarter Electric Grid: How Investing in Smarter Electricity Infrastructure Will Energize America,” a white-paper focused on the opportunities presented by a “smarter” electric network and the specific investments that should be made to take full advantage of tomorrow’s energy technologies without sacrificing the…
Last summer, we published “Improving Upon Our Dig Laws: How State Legislatures Can Help Us Dig Safer,” where we performed an extensive review of the incident data revealed in the Common Ground Alliance’s (CGA) 2014 DIRT report (released in Fall 2015), offered some recommendations states could incorporate into their Damage…
Written by Shane Skelton, Aii Executive Director Pipeline safety reauthorization legislation cleared another crucial hurdle on its way to the President’s desk on Wednesday when the U.S. House of Representatives (House) Committee on Energy & Commerce (Energy & Commerce) reported their version of the bill out of the full committee….
A contribution by Chanil N. De Silva; Director of Policy at Nouveau Inc. The NTSB released its annual “Most Wanted” transportation safety improvements for 2016. The list covers aviation, highway, marine, rail and pipeline networks and has been called a “roadmap from lessons learned to lives saved”. This year’s list…
Reducing, and eventually eliminating, instances of excavation damage should be the underlying goal of every Damage Prevention program. There are a number of parties involved in every excavation project – facility owners and operators, locate companies, One Call centers, and excavators. Plus, there are multiple governmental bodies and industry groups…
On December 4th, President Obama signed a $305 billion highway bill marking a large victory for Congress and the White House. To the casual observer, it may seem as though infrastructure legislation can finally be put in the rear view mirror for another half decade – this is not so….
As technology continues to improve, the manner in which we use the Internet, TV, water, electricity, and other utilities has changed dramatically. The Internet allows us to watch movies or find answers to any question online in a moment. High definition TV make it possible to track a puck with…
Infrastructure is the backbone of the American economy. Roads, bridges, railways, pipelines, and airports alike connect America, permitting the free flow of people and goods across the continent. The state of the nation’s infrastructure has been in the spotlight recently due to a variety of unfortunate incidents, ranging from bridges…
Click here to read the letter. As Congress prepares to vote on the reauthorization of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) at the end of this month, the Alliance for Innovation and Infrastructure (Aii) wants to be sure members of Congress pay special attention to the primary cause…
