Former Senior PHMSA Official • 25+ Years of Pipeline Industry Experience

The regulatory insight your pipeline operations demand.

Clearpath Pipeline Advisors delivers compliance strategy, expert witness testimony, and excavation safety guidance built on decades of industry and regulator experience.

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Services

What we do

Deep federal expertise, applied commercially — so you can operate with confidence and defend your record when it matters most.

Regulatory Compliance

Navigate 49 CFR Parts 190–199 with someone who helped enforce them. Compliance program audits, gap analysis, and corrective action plans tailored to your operations.

Expert Witness & Litigation Support

Credible, experienced testimony grounded in federal enforcement standards. Available for depositions, trial testimony, regulatory interpretation, and case strategy support.

Excavation Damage Prevention

Comprehensive guidance on excavation safety programs, best practices for damage prevention, and compliance with state and federal one-call/811 requirements.

Incident Investigation

Root cause analysis and investigation support modeled on federal protocols. Identify failures, determine causation, and build defensible findings for your organization.

One-Call & 811 Program Development

Design and evaluate one-call notification programs, stakeholder training, and locate-and-mark compliance in alignment with CGA best practices and federal expectations.

Safety Culture & Training

Executive briefings, operator training programs, and safety management system development designed by someone who has seen what works — and what fails — in the field.

Why Clearpath

Not just a consultant. A former regulator
who sat on your side of the table.

The difference between advice and insight is experience.

Regulator's Perspective

Understand exactly how PHMSA evaluates your operations, prioritizes enforcement actions, and interprets ambiguous regulatory language — because we were there making those calls.

Defensible Work Product

Every deliverable is built to withstand regulatory scrutiny and legal challenge. Our analyses, reports, and testimony are grounded in the same standards we once enforced.

Practical, Not Academic

We've conducted field inspections, led accident investigations, and managed enforcement cases. Our guidance reflects operational reality, not theoretical compliance.

About the Principal

Three decades on the front line of pipeline safety.

Following experience in industry and as a regulator with the U.S. Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, David Appelbaum founded Clearpath Pipeline Advisors to bring hard-won federal expertise to operators, attorneys, and organizations navigating the complex landscape of pipeline and hazardous materials regulation.

Career highlights include leadership roles in enforcement, investigation, and state program oversight — with direct involvement in some of the most significant pipeline safety matters of the last three decades. This depth of experience translates directly into actionable, authoritative guidance for every client engagement.

PHMSA Senior Official (Ret.) 49 CFR Expert Qualified Expert Witness 811 / One-Call Specialist Excavation Safety Incident Investigation Lead