Report Finds Pipeline Oversight Wanting A report issued on Monday by the National Wildlife Federation asserts that federal laws regulating oil pipelines are inadequate in several crucial areas and that local regulations do not provide sufficient protection against safety and environmental risks. The report, which focuses on the Great Lakes region, said that current federal rules do not take into account the long-term risks and environmental impacts of new pipeline routes. It also found that the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, which oversees pipelines in the United States, gives companies too much discretion in how they manage their own pipelines. "We concluded that current laws leave the door open to future spills," said Sara Gosman, an adjunct professor at the University of Michigan Law School who researched pipeline regulation and wrote the report with three law students."Oil pipelines are out of sight, but that doesn't mean the risks of these pipelines should be out of mind." The report complains that none of the eight states in the Great Lakes region requires pipeline companies to devise their own response plans in case of a spill to supplement federal requirements already in place. The environmental group's research was prompted by a rupture of an Enbridge Energy pipeline accident near Marshall, Mich., in July 2010 that dumped more than 840,000 gallons of oil and led to the closing of a 39-mile stretch of the Kalamazoo River. Nearly two years after the accident, Calhoun County health officials announced this month that a three-mile portion of the river would reopen. The Environmental Protection Agency has said that additional segments may reopen later this year. The wildlife federation's report focused on areas in which pipeline safety advocates have been pushing for changes like expanding inspection requirements for operators. Last December, Congress passed legislation that raised the maximum fines pipeline operators face for safety violations, among other provisions toughening the rules for pipeline operators. But some safety advocates contend that the legislation did not go far enough. "From a national perspective, we were happy to see that this analysis came to the same conclusions that we have," said Carl Weimer, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust. The national pipeline safety bill began to address some of these issues, but many of the important sections just required more study and did not actually correct the problems. Jeannie Layson, a spokeswoman for the pipeline agency, said in an e-mail that the agency was committed to improving pipeline safety and was hoping to receive an increase in federal funding that would allow the hiring of additional inspectors and more coordination with states. She emphasized that the agency has stepped up enforcement actions, proposed new safety rules and issued advisories on damage prevention and increased penalties, as well as expanding the use of excess flow valves and replacing cast iron pipelines. The wildlife group's report comes during a period of increased scrutiny for pipeline safety. In addition to the accident in Michigan, an oil spill last July in the Yellowstone River in Montana prompted lawmakers and safety advocates to call for more stringent inspections of pipelines, as did a natural gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno, Calif., in 2010 that killed eight people. A New York Times examination of federal reports and pipeline data last year showed that the federal pipeline agency had a chronic shortage of inspectors and left a great deal of regulatory control in the hands of pipeline operators themselves. Debate over the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, a 1,700-mile project that would run from Canada's oil sands to the Gulf Coast, has also deepened concern among environmental groups and politicians that the federal pipeline agency is not equipped to adequately monitor such a large project. In January, President Barack Obama rejected a permit for Keystone XL in response to congressional legislation, saying that the State Department did not have enough time to review it within the 60-day deadline set by lawmakers. But Mr. Obama left room for the project to be approved in the future, and the company behind the project, TransCanada, said it would reapply. The issue is likely to persist throughout the presidential campaign.