Crude By Rail, Emergency Readiness & Response, Ethanol, Federal pre-emption, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Hazmat notification, High Hazard Flammable Trains (HHFTs), Homeland Security, Rail routing

New oil-train safety rules will put public back in the dark

Repost from the Bellingham Herald

New oil-train safety rules will put public back in the dark

By Curtis Tate, McClatchy Washington Bureau, May 1, 2015

WASHINGTON — Details about rail shipments of crude oil and ethanol will be made exempt from public disclosure under new regulations announced by the U.S. Department of Transportation on Friday.

The department will end its requirement, put in place a year ago, that required railroads to share information about large volumes of Bakken crude oil with state officials.

Instead, railroads will share information directly with emergency responders, but it will be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act and state public records laws, the way other hazardous materials such as chlorine and anhydrous ammonia are currently protected.

After a CSX train carrying Bakken crude oil derailed and caught fire in Lynchburg, Va., on April 30 last year, federal regulators required railroads to notify emergency response agencies of shipments of 1 million gallons or more of Bakken crude oil through their states.

The railroads complied, but asked states to sign agreements to keep the information confidential. Some agreed, but most refused, citing a conflict with their open records laws.

Using FOIA and state public records laws, McClatchy last year obtained full or partial data on Bakken rail shipments from 24 states. Another five states denied McClatchy’s requests.

CSX and Norfolk Southern, the dominant eastern railroads, sued Maryland to block the state from releasing its information to McClatchy. A trial is scheduled for next month.

McClatchy, however, was able to obtain some of the information about the Maryland shipments by going to Amtrak. Norfolk Southern uses a portion of the passenger railroad’s Northeast Corridor for its crude oil trains.

Last fall, the rail industry’s leading trade groups quietly asked the Transportation Department to drop the requirement.

In pretrial documents in the Maryland lawsuit, the railroads’ lawyers maintain that disclosure of the information – including the routes the trains take and the counties through which they pass – could compromise security, erode the companies’ competitive edge and harm their customers.

As of October, the Federal Railroad Administration disagreed. It said that information about the Bakken shipments was neither security nor commercially sensitive and was not exempt from public release. It also said it would continue the reporting requirement.

But on page 242 of the 395-page final rule the department published on Friday, it appeared that the railroads got their wish.

Starting next year, emergency responders will have access to information about shipments of all types of crude oil, not just Bakken, ethanol and other flammable liquids. The volume threshold will also be lowered to 20 or more cars of flammable liquid in a continuous block, or 35 or more cars dispersed throughout a train.

The shipments, however, will be classified as “security sensitive” and details about them shielded from the public.

“Under this approach,” the regulation states, “the transportation of crude oil by rail can…avoid the negative security and business implications of widespread public disclosure of routing and volume data.”

Bakken Crude, CPC-1232, Crude By Rail, DOT-111, Environmental review, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Rail Safety, Tank car retirement, Tank car retrofit, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail, Volatility, West Coast refineries

New rules for crude-by-rail transport fall short

Repost from SFGate (San Francisco Chronicle)

New rules for crude-by-rail transport fall short

By Lois Kazakoff on May 1, 2015 5:50 PM
Oil imports by rail account for just about 1 percent of total shipments to California refineries, but they are rising rapidly. Above, trains at a Union Pacific yard in Bloomington, Calif.
California moves to prevent spills of oil shipped by trains – Oil imports by rail account for just about 1 percent of total shipments to California refineries, but they are rising rapidly. Above, trains at a Union Pacific yard in Bloomington, Calif. Photo By Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times/MCT

The U.S. Department of Transportation unveiled new rules on transporting crude oil by rail Friday that set a timeline to get old-technology, easily punctured tank cars off U.S. and Canadian rail lines but fail to address the explosive nature of the Bakken crude that sparked the public’s concerns to begin with.

While the new rules are a step toward safer rail transport, it is a disappointing decision for the dozens of communities the oil trains roll through on the way to West Coast refineries. The new rules get the old DOT-111 cars off the rails over the next three years, and beef up the steel gauge required to construct the new CPC-1232 cars. But the Department of Transportation itself noted nearly a decade ago that the old cars punctured in minor, low-speed collisions. The new rules should have immediately banned them rather than phasing them out.

Most distressing is that the new rules do not set a standard for the volatility of what goes in the tank cars. Lower volatility would reduce the risk of explosions. Crude extracted from the Bakken Oil Shale is significantly more volatile than other types of petroleum — a fact the Department of Transportation has acknowledged and the public became aware of in July 2013 when a train carrying Bakken crude exploded in Lac Megantic, Ontario.

The new rules will do little to allay the worries of residents in Davis, Martinez and Pinole, where railroad tracks crisscross streets, or in Benicia, where Valero has applied for permission to retrofit its refinery to receive crude by rail in addition to crude by tanker ship. Valero has proposed moving the oil in the CPC-1232 cars, limiting oil trains to 50 cars rather than the more standard unit of 100 cars, and reducing train speeds in town. The City of Benicia is expected to release the draft environmental impact report on the project June 30.

Bills introduced in the House and the Senate this month would address these concerns, and more, notably requirements to notify first responders in real time when the trains are coming through. The new department rules require a railroads to provide a telephone number for first responders to call but do not require notification.

“These rules do not go far enough in addressing the safety concerns posed by trains transporting highly volatile crude oil through the heart of our communities,” said Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena. “We need to put robust, comprehensive safety measures in place that will help make sure communities are safe, rail cars meet the strongest possible standards, and first responders are prepared in the event of an emergency. DOT’s rules do not sufficiently address these issues and so Congress should act to put safety measures in place.”

Action in Congress this month presaged the announcement of the new less-than-adequate Department of Transportation regulations.

Thompson’s bill, introduced April 15 and co-authored with Reps. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento, and Ron Kind, D-Wis., would require volatility standards and weekly communications between first responders and railroad officials about crude oil trains.

In the Senate, Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-San Francisco, Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., introduced legislation April 30 to protect communities from oil train accidents, focusing on communication with first responders.

Last year saw a record 144 rail accidents in the U.S., up from just one in 2009. The volume of oil cars, however, has increased by 4000 percent since 2008.

Rep. Thompson has it right: Congress needs to step in and demand better protections for communities on the rail lines.

Crude By Rail, Emergency Readiness & Response, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), First responder training, Tank car design, Tank car retirement, Volatility

Senator Cantwell: “The new DOT rule is just like saying let the oil trains roll. It does nothing…”

Senator Cantwell Press Release
[Editor:  For the full text of the 395-page rule, see http://www.dot.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/docs/final-rule-flammable-liquids-by-rail_0.pdf.  – RS]

Cantwell Statement on DOT Crude-by-Rail Safety Rules

May 1, 2015

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) issued the following statement on the U.S. Department of Transportation’s new rules governing the safety of oil train tank cars.

“The new DOT rule is just like saying let the oil trains roll. It does nothing to address explosive volatility, very little to reduce the threat of rail car punctures, and is too slow on the removal of the most dangerous cars. It’s more of a status quo rule than the real safety changes needed to protect the public and first responders.”

In March following four fiery derailments involving oil trains, Cantwell introduced the Crude-By-Rail Safety Act of 2015 with Senators Patty Murray (D-WA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Jeff Merkley (D-OR). The legislation requires the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) to establish new regulations to mitigate the volatility of gases in crude oil shipped via tank car. It also would immediately halt the use of older-model tank cars at high risk for puncturing and catching fire in derailments, as well approving $40 million for first responder training programs to improve emergency response procedures.

CPC-1232, Crude By Rail, Derailment, DOT-111, DOT-117, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Fire, High Hazard Flammable Trains (HHFTs), Rail Safety, Tank car design

NY Times: U.S. Sets New Rules for Oil Trains – Sen. Schumer: DOT gave railroads too much time to remove unsafe cars

Repost from the New York Times

U.S. Sets New Rules for Oil Shipments by Rail

By Jad Mouawad

An oil train in Everett, Wash. There have been five explosions and spills involving oil trains this year, four in the United States and one in Canada. Credit Elaine Thompson/Associated Press

Ending months of delays and uncertainty, federal regulators on Friday disclosed new rules for safer transportation of crude oil by trains, introducing a new tank car standard and mandating the use of new braking technology.

The regulations, more than two years in the making, followed a spate of derailments, oil spills and fiery explosions involving oil trains around the country that have highlighted the risks involved in shipping large quantities of explosive material on rails through cities.

The rules state that the oldest, least safe tank cars should be replaced within three years with new cars that have thicker shells, higher safety shields and better fire protection. A later generation of tank cars, built since 2011 with more safety features, will have to be retrofitted or replaced by 2020.

It is the second time in weeks that the Department of Transportation has announced new rules for rail shipments to instill public confidence. Last month, it set lower speed limits for oil trains going through urban areas.

There have been five explosions and spills this year alone, four in the United States and one in Canada. In July 2013, 47 people died in Canada after a runway train derailed and exploded in the city of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec.

“I am hopeful the rail industry will accept this rule, and will follow this rule,” Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said at a news conference in Washington. He appeared with Canada’s transport minister, Lisa Raitt, who said Canadian and American regulation would be aligned.

There has been growing pressure from local governments, members of Congress, safety experts and environmental advocates for federal action. The question before the administration was to determine what level of protection the new generation of cars should have and how quickly to roll them out.

The new rules create a new standard, “high-hazard flammable trains,” defined as “a continuous block of 20 or more tank cars loaded with flammable liquid or 35 or more tank cars loaded with a flammable liquid dispersed through a train.”

By 2018, the rule would phase out older tank cars, DOT-111s, long known to be ill suited for transporting flammable material. A newer generation of cars, known as CPC-1232, would have to be retired or refitted to meet the new standard, DOT-117, by 2020.

All cars built under the DOT-117 standard after Oct. 1, 2015, will have a thicker nine-sixteenths-inch tank shell, a one-half-inch shield running the full height of the front and back of a tank car, thermal protection and improved pressure-relief valves and bottom outlet valves.

Regulators retreated from a provision that would have forced railroads to notify communities of any oil train traffic. Instead, railroads will be required to have a “point of contact” for information related to the routing of hazardous materials.

Some critics asserted after Friday’s announcement that the regulations would do little to prevent another spill or explosion while older cars remained in operation.

On Thursday, seven senators, including Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, unveiled a bill that would seek to impose a $175 per shipment fee on older cars to speed up their removal from service.

Senator Schumer said Friday’s announcement gave railroads too much time to remove older cars from service.

“The good news is that the standards are predictable, but the bad news is that the phaseout time is too lenient,” he said. “Our railroads are changing, and are getting much busier because of all this oil business, and they will have to adapt. They can’t do it the old way.”

The Association of American Railroads said it backed the new tank car requirements but objected to a requirement that railroads should adopt new electronically controlled pneumatic brakes, or E.C.P., starting in 2021 for oil trains.

“The D.O.T. couldn’t make a safety case for E.C.P. but forged ahead anyway,” Edward R. Hamberger, the president and chief executive of the Association of American Railroads, said in a statement. “I have a hard time believing the determination to impose E.C.P. brakes is anything but a rash rush to judgment.”

For safe and healthy communities…