Posted on 11/13/2002 9:12:18 AM PST by Willie Green
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:02:39 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
A new federal rule has plumbers across the state boiling mad, because they have to go through costly training and drug tests in order to qualify to work on home gas lines.
The federal Department of Transportation edict went into effect Oct. 28, though it was promulgated three years ago, and it requires that all personnel who work on residential gas lines, from the street to the home, must obtain the new certification and agree to drug testing.
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...
It's just another tax.
And I think the market for underground and illegal-alien plumbers just got a big boost.
Hell, locally, we would save more explosions if ATT cable didn't hire immigrant Dominicans to lay fibre optics. They blew up a house in my hometown, not the plumber in the yellow pages.
SD
Professionals in the business of gas line installation are well aware of the hazards involved.
It is not a task that you want performed by some pothead with a short attention span.
I am sure. But my point was that I hadn't heard of any accidents of this nature. Ever. And last year some immigrant "cable guys" blew up a house in my hometown. They were digging in the wrong place, and then after they dtruck the line, there was no one of them who knew how to warn anybody in the neighborhood in English.
Are there lots of gas line accidents caused by plumbers, or is this a federal solution in search of a problem? It sounds like a burden on businessmen.
SD
The only burden is that the market was allowed to develop multiple certification "standards" when one should be sufficient.
Yes, of course that is stupidity in action.
But where are the horrible accidents that are the impetus for this federal action? How many homes got blown up last year because of a incompetent plumber?
Wouldn't, presumably, the insurance companies of these plumbers be the ones with the interest in making sure they are not screwballs? Why is it the federal gov't mandating things? Where is the problem?
SD
Of course they would, and so would the gas companies themselves.
I don't know why the Department of Transportation issued the edict, and I don't even understand why the Department of Transportation would even have jurisdiction over residential gas line installation. That part doesn't make sense to me at all.
All the employee drug-screening I've ever seen in the private sector has always been employer initiated (perhaps at the urging of their insurance carrier).
IMHO, it would make much more sense if some industry trade association (perhaps somebody like The Natural Gas Supply Association (NGSA)?) would step in an provide a common certification for plumbers to comply with. (Although I'm sure that various local community zoning and safety boards may come up with requirements for various fly-by-night local contractors and "handymen" moonlighting part-time.)
But why the Department of Transportation?
I have no idea.
It's a complete mystery to me, unless they think it is somehow linked to the standards they issue covering the pressure cylinders used to transport flammable gases (such as the oxygen/acetylene tanks used in welding)
You got me. Gas is "transported" across state lines, but it remains energy. For that matter, the plumbers are engaged in commerce. Who knows why things are the way they are? What do alcohol, tobacco and firearms have in common?
SD
They were digging a trench to bury the cable and they hit a gas line. Then, as I said, they had no way to warn anyone intelligbly, since they had no one on the crew to speak English.
They did get the families out of the house, so no one was killed, but it leveled one house and did some serious damage to a neighboring one.
SD
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