The Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) serves the public interest by effectively regulating utilities and facilities so that the people of Colorado receive safe, reliable, and reasonably priced services consistent with the economic, environmental, and social values of our state. The purpose of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission’s (PUC) Pipeline Safety Program (PSP) is to administer a statewide hazardous gas pipeline safety program certified by the U.S. Department of Transportation, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (U.S. DOT; PHMSA) through the enforcement of federal and state rules and regulations. The program exists to protect the health and safety of Colorado citizens’ life, property, and the environment from the risks of hazardous materials transportation via pipeline. The PSP program supports the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies’ mission of consumer protection and endeavours to ensure the safe operation of all jurisdictional pipelines by verifying that operators are complying with state and federal pipeline safety regulations. The PSP acts as the PUC’s expert in developing, recommending, and maintaining appropriate pipeline safety regulations focused on the goal of minimizing the risks to public health, safety, and the environment that may be posed by hazardous materials pipeline operations. The PSP performs comprehensive and detailed safety audits and investigations of jurisdictional hazardous gas pipeline operators to identify violations of pipeline safety regulations. The primary process for these audits is the risk-based inspection of the programs, procedures, processes, records, and facilities of jurisdictional intrastate hazardous gas pipelines. These include natural gas transmission, distribution, gathering, petroleum gas (LPG), liquefied natural gas (LNG) and master metered pipeline systems. The PSP ensures minimum compliance with state and federal pipeline safety regulations, minimizes the public safety impact of any violation of these regulations, and prevents recurrence of any violation of these regulations through 1) educating of jurisdictional pipeline operators on pipeline safety regulations, standards and best practices. 2) Interacting with and exchanging information with other safety and environmental agencies in Colorado, e.g., PHMSA Western Region, COGCC, and CDPHE. 3) Issuing appropriate compliance actions against violators, including developing action plans and metrics to remedy the violation and/or recommending that the Commission issue a Civil Penalty against the operator. Position: SGA 5169 The OMI (Operations, Maintenance, and Inspection) Pipeline Safety Inspector position exists to conduct inspection of pipeline compliance through standard and field inspections, participate and share lessons learned in damage prevention discussions in areas of higher pipeline damage, participate in regional Damage Prevention Councils, review excavation damage metrics from available Colorado 811 and PUC data, perform public awareness program evaluations, and assist staff in presentations to the affected stakeholders through operator training. In addition, this position has administrative responsibilities involving auditable documentation required by the work unit to determine the compliance or non-compliance of the operators/contractors assigned to this position and work group guidelines. Duties include, but are not limited to:Inspecting pipeline operator facilities (e.g., pipelines, pressure control facilities, compressor stations, etc.) and observing field operations, maintenance, and construction activities to verify compliance with applicable pipeline safety regulations;Completing required U.S. OPS (PHSMSA) classroom and computer-based training (CBT) is required through the federal pipeline safety program;Auditing jurisdictional pipeline operators’ procedures, processes, and records to verify compliance with applicable pipeline safety regulations (known in the work unit as a “Standard Inspection”);Identifying areas of non-compliance, inconsistency and incompleteness with established State or Federal regulation or industry standards;Observing operator tasks in the field listed in the procedures, looking for inconsistencies in the operators' procedures and inconsistencies in the operator performance records.