As used in the Pipeline Safety Act [70-3-11 to 70-3-20 NMSA 1978]:

A. "person" means an individual, firm, joint venture, partnership, corporation, association, state, municipality, political subdivision, cooperative association, joint stock association or any combination thereof and includes any receiver, trustee, assignee or personal representative thereof;

B. "commission" means the public regulation commission;

C. "gas" means natural gas, flammable gas or gas that is toxic or corrosive;

D. "oil" means crude oil and liquid hydrocarbons and manufactured products derived from either;

E. "transportation of gas" means the gathering, transmission or distribution of gas by pipeline or its storage, except that it shall not include the gathering of gas in those rural locations that lie outside the limits of any municipality or unincorporated city, town or village or any residential or commercial area such as a subdivision, a business or shopping center, a community development or any similar populated area that the commission may define by order as a nonrural area;

F. "transportation of oil" means the transmission of oil by pipeline, except pipelines operated exclusively for the gathering of oil in any field or area or pipelines constituting a part of any tank farm, plant facilities of any processing plant, gasoline plant, refinery, carbon-black plant, recycling system or similar operations;

G. "gas pipeline facilities" means new and existing pipeline rights of way and any equipment, facility or structure used in the transportation of gas or the treatment of gas during the course of transportation;

H. "oil pipeline facilities" means new and existing pipeline rights of way and any equipment, facility or structure used in the transportation of oil;

I. "intrastate pipeline facilities" means oil pipeline facilities or gas pipeline facilities within the state that are not gas pipeline facilities subject to the jurisdiction of the federal energy regulatory commission pursuant to the federal Natural Gas Act or oil pipeline facilities used in the transportation of oil in interstate or foreign commerce, except that it shall include pipeline facilities within the state that transport gas from an interstate gas pipeline to a direct sales customer within the state purchasing gas for its own consumption;

J. "distribution main" means a pipeline other than a gathering or transmission line that serves as a common source of supply for more than one service line;

K. "master meter" means a pipeline system for distributing gas within, but not limited to, a definable area, such as a mobile home park, housing project or apartment complex, where the operator purchases metered gas from an outside source for resale through a gas distribution pipeline system. The master meter system supplies the ultimate consumer who either purchases the gas directly through a meter or by other means such as by rents, as more fully set forth in federal laws and regulations; and

L. "service line" means a pipeline that transports gas from a common source of supply, such as a distribution main, to:

(1) a customer meter or the connection to a customer's piping, whichever is further downstream; or

(2) the connection to a customer's piping if there is no customer meter. A "customer meter" is the meter that measures the transfer of gas from an operator to a consumer.

History: 1953 Comp., § 65-4-16, enacted by Laws 1969, ch. 71, § 2; 1993, ch. 185, § 1; 1998, ch. 108, § 79; 2004, ch. 80, § 3.

Cross references. — For the federal Natural Gas Act, see 15 U.S.C. § 717 et seq.

The 2004 amendment, effective July 1, 2004, added Subsections J, K and L.

The 1998 amendment, effective January 1, 1999, substituted "an" for "any" in Subsection A; substituted "public regulation" for "state corporation" in Subsection B; and made minor stylistic changes throughout the section.

The 1993 amendment, effective June 18, 1993, added the section heading; substituted "from either" for "therefrom" at the end of Subsection D; and added Subsection I, making related grammatical changes.