Sen. Paul ends ‘hold’ on pipeline safety bill

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has dropped his legislative “hold” on a bipartisan pipeline safety bill, paving the way for quick Senate action on the measure.

A Senate Democratic aide said the bill could be quickly moved through the chamber under unanimous consent Monday.

Paul and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said Monday night in the Capitol that there's an agreement to attach a Paul amendment to the bill.

Paul's amendment addresses testing of older pipelines that he was concerned would not have been covered by the bill, he said. Paul recently met with the National Transportation Safety Board, which probed last year's fatal natural gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno, California.

"We came to the conclusion that most of the accidents were occuring on older pipelines," Paul told The Hill in the Capitol Monday. "And so we thought there needed to be some testing done on the older pipelines."

Paul said the amendment "looks at the older pipelines and says if there is no history of them having a pressure test, then a pressure test has to be done. That would have actually detected San Bruno's problem before the accident."

Feinstein said she worked with Paul and that it's a "good amendment."

"It should pass tonight," she said of the overall bill.

Paul had been preventing quick Senate action on the bill, which unanimously cleared the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee in May, expressing concern that a bill creating new regulations would sail through the chamber without enough discussion.

We have more on the bill and Paul’s concerns here and here.

This story was updated at 6:11 p.m.