Category Archives: State regulation

Washington: New rule requires railroads to show they can handle oil spills

Repost from the Tri-City Herald, Kennewick, WA
[Editor: Significant quote: “…California and Minnesota have implemented similar laws for railroads.”  – RS]

Washington: Railroads must show they can handle oil spills

By the Associated Press, September 1, 2016 2:16 PM

HIGHLIGHTS
Washington’s Department of Ecology has adopted a new rule requiring that railroads shipping oil through the state demonstrate that they can immediately respond to any spills.

FILE - This June 6, 2016, file aerial video image taken from a drone shows crumpled oil tankers lying beside the railroad tracks after a fiery June 3 train derailment that prompted evacuations from the tiny Columbia River Gorge town of Mosier, Ore. Federal investigators on Thursday, June 23, 2016, blamed Union Pacific Railroad for the derailment along the Oregon-Washington border, saying the company failed to properly maintain its track. Preliminary findings on the derailment raise questions about why the company didn't find the broken bolts that triggered the wreck when it inspected the tracks right before the derailment.
FILE – This June 6, 2016, file aerial video image taken from a drone shows crumpled oil tankers lying beside the railroad tracks after a fiery June 3 train derailment that prompted evacuations from the tiny Columbia River Gorge town of Mosier, Ore. Federal investigators on Thursday, June 23, 2016, blamed Union Pacific Railroad for the derailment along the Oregon-Washington border, saying the company failed to properly maintain its track. Preliminary findings on the derailment raise questions about why the company didn’t find the broken bolts that triggered the wreck when it inspected the tracks right before the derailment. Brent Foster AP

OLYMPIA, WASH.  |  Washington’s Department of Ecology has adopted a new rule requiring that railroads shipping oil through the state demonstrate that they can immediately respond to any spills.

The department said Thursday the rule takes effect Oct. 1, and it brings railroads into line with rules for companies moving oil by pipeline and by vessel.

Railroads will have to provide Ecology with contingency plans detailing steps the railroad will take if oil spills or a substantial risk of a spill occurs during transport. Officials say they’ll review each plan and require that they be tested through appropriate drills.

The state says California and Minnesota have implemented similar laws for railroads.

This fall, Washington is also beginning to require that facilities receiving shipments of crude oil by rail notify Ecology, which will share notice of those plans with local first responders.

Oil train safety an issue in Washington gubernatorial debate

Repost from Oregon Public Broadcasting
[Editor: Would someone please get California candidates to talk about the pollution and derailment dangers of oil trains??  – RS]

Inslee, Bryant Agree To Disagree Over Oil Trains In Washington

By Emily Schwing Northwest News Network | Aug. 18, 2016 2:58 p.m. | Updated: Aug. 19, 2016 8:57 a.m.
Chris Hooper, right, of White Salmon watches the fire caused by a derailed oil train in Mosier, Oregon, near Hood River in the Columbia River Gorge on Friday, June 3, 2016.
Chris Hooper, right, of White Salmon watches the fire caused by a derailed oil train in Mosier, Oregon, near Hood River in the Columbia River Gorge on Friday, June 3, 2016. John Sepulvado/OPB

Washington gubernatorial candidates touched on the topic of oil trains during their first debate of the season in Spokane Wednesday.

Republican challenger Bill Bryant said oil trains are something he and incumbent Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee agree on.

“If they are going to be bringing in highly flammable material and bringing in oil, they better be bringing it in on cars that meet safety standards and on rails that are safe enough to transport that commodity,” Bryant said.

If elected, Bryant said he’d put a moratorium on any new state regulations. That’s why Inslee said he disagrees with his opponent.

“The very first thing I heard my opponent say today is ‘all regulations are bad.’ This is the only way we are going to get more safety on railroads,” Inslee said. “These sound bites can come back to prevent us from making progress.”

Inslee called for reduced train speeds, improved track inspections and support for electronic braking systems.

Spokane’s city council has spent the last month wrestling with whether local government can regulate the shipment of volatile crude oil within city limits. Debate over that question has grown since an oil train derailed in Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge in June.

The candidates also debated over an economic development project west of Spokane that includes a casino. Inslee signed off on the project in June. He said the Spokane County project is part of his larger effort to bolster rural economies.

“It’s gonna be decades of work, there’s gonna be tons of economic development associated with this,” Inslee said.

The Spokane Indian Tribe expects to break ground next month on the casino, as well as shops, restaurants, a cultural center — and it’s happening a mile from Fairchild Air Force Base.

Inslee said he had meetings with high-ranking officials before he signed off.

“I was not going to build a casino and lose Fairchild. I was not going to do that,” Inslee said. “The guy in the Pentagon told me that and I’m taking that to the bank.”

Fairchild is the largest employer in Spokane County. Inslee’s Republican Challenger Bill Bryant expressed concerns about base expansion in the future.

“One thing I learned from the apple industry is you better make sure what you’re planting today, is what you want to harvest in four or seven years,” he said.

If elected, Bryant suggested he might develop a 10-year plan to work with the military.

NPR: In The Pacific Northwest, Oil Train Derailment Highlights Potential Dangers

Heard on All Things Considered
By Conrad Wilson, August 12, 2016 4:31 PM ET

The number of trains carrying oil along the Columbia River between Oregon and Washington could dramatically increase.

There’s a plan to ship more oil from the Bakken region of North Dakota to a proposed oil terminal in southwest Washington state.

An oil train derailment earlier this year has shown the potential danger faced by the region.

TRANSCRIPT________________________________________________

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

In the Northwest, the number of trains carrying oil along the Columbia River could dramatically increase, and that’s sharpened a debate over oil train safety in Washington state and Oregon. There’s a plan to ship more oil from the Bakken region to a proposed oil terminal in Washington. As Conrad Wilson of Oregon Public Broadcasting reports, a recent derailment has shown the potential danger the area faces.

CONRAD WILSON, BYLINE: On a Friday in early June, more than 40,000 gallons of Bakken crude spilled in a fiery oil train derailment that burned for 14 hours.

EMILY REED: It is an incredibly scary thing to have something like this happen so – and within our city limits, so close to our school.

WILSON: Emily Reed is the city council president in Mosier, Ore., the town where the derailment took place. About 500 people live in Mosier, and 100 of them were forced to evacuate when the oil train derailed. Reed points out the town’s deep in the Columbia River Gorge, a canyon with steep cliffs, where winds can reach 40 miles per hour during the summer.

REED: If the wind had been as it is today or more, we would have had a fire going up more than four of those cars, all the way through town and wiping out our town.

WILSON: Union Pacific was to blame for the derailment that caused the oil spill, according to a preliminary report by the Federal Railroad Administration. It says Union Pacific didn’t maintain its tracks properly. However, an inspector certified by that same federal agency checked the tracks and gave them the OK a little more than a month before the derailment.

JERRY OLIVER: It was unfortunate for the community.

WILSON: Jerry Oliver is a port commissioner in Vancouver, Wash., and a vocal supporter of what would be the largest oil-by-rail terminal in the country, known as the Vancouver Energy Project.

OLIVER: It’s also unfortunate because it gives a tremendous black eye to anything related to fossil fuels.

WILSON: If built, the terminal would more than double the number of mile-long oil trains traveling along the Columbia River, to about 46 trains per week. Serena Larkin is with the Sightline Institute, a Seattle-based think tank that opposes the oil terminal. She says until Mosier, oil train derailments were the kind of thing that happened somewhere else.

SERENA LARKIN: Mosier proved that we’re not any different. We are just as vulnerable. We are facing the exact same risks from oil trains that everyone else in North America is facing right now.

WILSON: Despite low oil prices, proponents of the project say the terminal is needed to reduce foreign imports and move domestic oil. For now, it’s relying on oil trains because there aren’t enough pipelines to move oil from North Dakota to the West Coast. Larkin says Mosier’s a turning point in the debate surrounding the Vancouver oil terminal and one that will weigh heavily on whether the project gets permitted.

LARKIN: It showed what the Vancouver oil terminal is really asking Northwest communities to shoulder in risk.

DAN RILEY: I strongly believe that all accidents are preventable.

WILSON: Dan Riley is vice president of government affairs for Tesoro, an oil company behind the project. Since the derailment in Mosier, he says there has been more scrutiny.

RILEY: I think that the criticism is not of the project, but of the rail system.

WILSON: Reilly says Tesoro has also pledged to only allow tank cars with thicker shells and other safety features designed to withstand a derailment into the Vancouver facility. But that’s done little to ease the safety concerns of firefighters and environmental groups. Ultimately, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has the final say on whether the project gets approved. That decision could come later this year. Inslee’s acknowledged the risk oil trains pose. He says the Mosier derailment is among the things he’ll consider when determining whether or not he’ll permit the oil terminal. For NPR News, I’m Conrad Wilson in Vancouver, Wash.

BNSF, Union Pacific lawsuit: claims California’s new rail hazmat fee illegal

Repost from Hazmat Magazine
[Note: The complaint is available at http://src.bna.com/hm1. – RS]

California’s new Rail Hazmat Fee Illegal Claims Railroads

By J Nicholson, August 11, 2016

As reported in Bloomberg BNA, California’s new fee on rail deliveries of crude oil and certain other hazardous materials is illegal, the nation’s two largest railroad companies said in a lawsuit ( BNSF Railway Co. v. California State Board of Equalization, N.D. Cal., No. 16-cv-04311-JCS, 7/29/16 ).

Filed in federal court in San Francisco, the complaint challenges a newly approved regulation requiring railroad companies to collect from their customers $45 for each rail car carrying 25 specified hazardous materials into the state. To be paid to the state’s Board of Equalization, the fee is earmarked to help the state prepare for hazardous material incidents.

The federal ICC Termination Act of 1995, the Hazardous Materials Transportation Act and the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976 preempt the fee implemented under S.B. 84, a budget bill enacted in 2015, the complaint said.

Plaintiffs want an order blocking the state from collecting the fee.

RAILWAY-TRACK

“This hazmat charge defies federal law and economic logic,” the complaint filed July 29 by BNSF Railway Co. and Union Pacific Railroad Co. said. “If exclusive federal jurisdiction over the economic relationship between railroads and their customers means anything, it means that a State cannot establish the charges to be collected for rail transportation, order a railroad to collect them from its customers, and depress rail revenues and customer demand in the process.”

Chemicals Covered by Fee

California’s Office of Emergency Services adopted the fee regulation in June.  Expected to take effect later this year, the fee applies to rail cars containing acetonitrile, certain alcohols, anhydrous ammonia, ammonium hydroxide and calcium hypochlorite.  It also applies to chlorine, certain corrosive liquids, diesel fuel, environmentally hazardous substances, ethanol, gasoline, hydrogen peroxide, liquefied petroleum gas, liquefied gas, methanol, methyl ethyl ketone, nitric acid, petroleum crude oil, phenol, phosphoric acid, potassium hydroxide, propylene, sodium hydroxide, sulfuric acid, toluene and vinyl acetate.

California’s fee only applies to rail deliveries, no other type of delivery of hazardous materials.  The Interstate Commerce Clause and the federal hazardous materials law forbid states from discriminating against interstate commerce, the complaint said.

Benjamin J. Horwich of Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP is representing BNSF Railway.  Union Pacific’s counsel are from Sidley Austin LLP and include Carol Lynn Thompson and in-house attorney Melissa B. Hagan.

A copy of the complaint is available at http://src.bna.com/hm1.