This paper investigates the effects of more stringent environmental regulation—specifically, paying amortized abandonment fees as accrued and absolute liability for adverse events—on the safety performance of Canadian oil and gas pipelines. We construct a comprehensive dataset that includes pipeline adverse events, throughput, and regulatory intensiveness for fourteen federally-regulated energy pipelines in Canada. We find that abandonment fees are significantly and positively associated with pipeline events. On average, a 1% increase in abandonment fees is associated with 1.3 more events per month. In contrast, establishing absolute liability is associated with significant decreases in the number of pipeline events: on average, absolute liability is responsible for eliminating 80% of quarterly events for Canadian major oil pipelines and 20% for smaller pipelines.

本文研究了更严格的环境法规对加拿大石油和天然气管道的安全性能的影响，特别是按应计的摊销弃置费和对不良事件的绝对责任。我们构建了一个全面的数据集，其中包括加拿大14条联邦监管的能源管道的管道不良事件，吞吐量和监管强度。我们发现，遗弃费用与管道事件显着正相关。平均而言，遗弃费用每增加1％，每月就会增加1.3次事件。相反，确定绝对责任与大幅减少有关 管道事件的数量：平均而言，绝对责任负责消除加拿大主要石油管道的季度事件的80％，较小管道的20％。