Engblom-Bradley was with Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. and was in charge of Trans-Alaska Pipeline System quality management programs. He joined the PSIO last February. The agency is about to add two more engineers and two natural resources specialists, Iversen said.

The PSIO's task is complicated because the industry is already regulated heavily by several agencies and a significant problem is that there is often little coordination or communication between agencies. There are gaps in oversight as well as overlaps.

Pipelines, loading terminals and tankers have long been subject to federal and state regulation, and producing wells, in Alaska and other states, are inspected by state agencies like the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. But field pipelines and oil and gas processing facilities have largely been left to industry, although the state fire marshall and the Departments of Labor and Environmental Conservation have oversight in certain areas.

Following the 2006 Prudhoe Bay spills, federal pipeline safety agencies extended their authority to in-field crude oil pipelines, like the ones that spilled oil, but no agency had overall responsibility for the networks of flow lines and major field processing plants.

That was the problem with the Prudhoe Bay field pipelines. The allegation, still in dispute, was that BP and ARCO Alaska, which previously operated the eastern side of the field, had trimmed maintenance spending when oil prices collapsed in the late 1990s.

Because there was a gap in regulatory oversight, there was no government agency looking over the companies' shoulders to make sure the maintenance was being done.

Problems still occur. A recent rupture of gas in a gas-lift line in the Prudhoe Bay field caught BP and the state by surprise. It was apparently caused by external corrosion and it required two production pads to be shut down while BP made repairs and did inspections.

Things could have been worse. Luckily, no fire or injuries happened. BP's well and pad shutdown systems worked as expected, too. Still, it was a signal problems are out there, Iversen said.

Meanwhile, the development of the PSIO is taken in measured steps.

"You have to earn the respect of people with something like this. You don't just issue press releases and blindside people," Iversen said.

The first objective is a comprehensive gap analysis now underway. Rice has done a paper study of gaps in authority among agencies, but a request for proposals has just been issued for a consultant to do a more comprehensive analysis of how different state agencies are actually using their authority.

"Most agencies have broad authority but they are all constrained by budgets and personnel," Iversen said.

The goal is to see if it's possible for agencies to coordinate and communicate better to provide cost-effective oversight, she said.

"We hope to have this completed in six months, but because we're working with many other agencies we're also dependent on their timelines," Iversen said.