so did our bellingham mayor, mark sdmonson and carl weimer with the pipeline safety trust and that trust came into being thanks to the families of safe bellingham. so together with them and the great support of colleagues in the senate, senator mccain tock toa tremendous lead, and slade gordon and congress members, and many others, together we worked very hard and passed and president bush finally signed into law legislation in 2002 to give the office of pipeline safety the resources and the muscle it needed to keep americans safe. that law improved the training of pipeline personnel. it raised the penalty for safety violations. it invested in new technology badly needed to improve pipeline safety, it improves the inspection practices and, importantly, expanded authority to our states to conduct their own safety activities. so, mr. president, children today in every corner of our state are safer because the people of bellingham stood up and said we don't want this to happen again. but the work is not done. our law has reduced the number of pipeline tragedies there are sometime accidents