From: Pittsburg Defense Council
Sent: Thursday, July 23, 2015 6:00 PM
A massive THANK YOU! to everyone who attended the Scoping Meeting at Pittsburg City Hall yesterday evening. The room was packed and the meeting ran for more than two hours, with the public comment period taking up most of that time.
All of the speakers brought articulate and well-researched comments and questions, and the atmosphere was one of respect and consideration. We were all incredibly impressed and honored to be in such great company.
The next step is to make sure all of our questions about the environmental impact of the proposed WesPac project are considered in the report analysis. The only way to do this is to write a public comments letter – you can email it or send it ‘snail mail.’ …MORE (Including guidelines for letter writing)
Repost from McClatchyDC [Editor: Significant quote: “Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio, New York and Pennsylvania told McClatchy last month that they had received no updated oil train reports from CSX since June 2014.” See also the Federal Railroad Administration press release AND letter. – RS]
Feds warn railroads to comply with oil train notification requirement
By Curtis Tate, July 22,2015
This Feb. 17, 2015, photo made available by the Office of the Governor of West Virginia shows a derailed train in Mount Carbon, W.Va. U.S. transportation officials predict many more catastrophic wrecks involving flammable fuels in coming years absent new regulations. | Steven Wayne Rotsch AP
The U.S. Department of Transportation warned railroads that they must continue to notify states of large crude oil shipments after several states reported not getting updated information for as long as a year.
The department imposed the requirement in May 2014 following a series of fiery oil train derailments, and it was designed to help state and local emergency officials assess their risk and training needs.
In spite of increased public concern about the derailments, railroads have opposed the public release of the oil train information by numerous states, and two companies sued Maryland last July to prevent the state from releasing the oil train data to McClatchy.
The rail industry fought to have the requirement dropped, and it appeared that they got their wish three months ago in the department’s new oil train rule.
We strongly support transparency and public notification to the fullest extent possible. Sarah Feinberg, acting administrator, Federal Railroad Administration
But facing backlash from lawmakers, firefighters and some states, the department announced it would continue to enforce the notification requirement indefinitely and take new steps make it permanent.
There have been six major oil train derailments in North America this year, the most recent last week near Culbertson, Mont. While that derailment only resulted in a spill, others in Ontario, West Virginia, Illinois and North Dakota involved fires, explosions and evacuations.
In a letter to the companies Wednesday, Sarah Feinberg, the acting chief of the Federal Railroad Administration, told them that the notifications were “crucial” to first responders and state and local officials in developing emergency plans.
“We strongly support transparency and public notification to the fullest extent possible,” she wrote. “And we understand the public’s interest in knowing what is traveling through their communities.”
The letter was written after lawyers for Norfolk Southern and CSX used the new federal oil train rules to support their position in the Maryland court case that public release of the information creates security risks and exposes the companies to competitive harm.
Feinberg added that the notifications must be updated “in a timely manner.”
States such as California, Washington and Illinois have received updated reports regularly from BNSF Railway, the nation’s leading hauler of crude oil in trains. Most of it is light, sweet crude from North Dakota’s Bakken region and is produced by hydraulic fracturing of shale rock.
But to get to refineries on the east coast, BNSF must hand off the trains to connecting railroads in Chicago or other points. Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio, New York and Pennsylvania told McClatchy last month that they had received no updated oil train reports from CSX since June 2014.
The emergency order requires the railroads to report the weekly frequency of shipments of 1 million gallons or more of Bakken crude, the routes they use and the counties through which they pass. The railroads must update the reports when the volume increases or decreases by 25 percent.
Railroads found to be in violation of the requirement face a maximum penalty of $175,000 a day for each incident. The Federal Railroad Administration periodically audits railroads for compliance.
6 – Number of major oil train derailments in North America in 2015.
Though publicly available data on the exact volume of crude oil moved by railroads is difficult to come by, in an April earnings call, Norfolk Southern, the principal rival of CSX, reported that its crude oil volumes increased 34 percent from the first quarter of 2014 to the first quarter of 2015.
That’s not a reliable indicator of the increase in Bakken crude oil on any one route, but Illinois, Ohio and Pennsylvania did say they received updated oil train reports from Norfolk Southern in the past year.
Of the states on the CSX crude oil network McClatchy asked, only Virginia reported receiving an update in the year between June 2014 and June 2015, and that was a week after a CSX oil train derailed and caught fire in February near Mount Carbon, W.Va.
Rob Doolittle, a spokesman for CSX, said the railroad continues to be “in full compliance” with the emergency order. He added that the railroad “recently” sent new notifications to the affected states, “regardless of whether there was any material change in the number of trains transported.”
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/economy/article28078114.html#storylink=cp
Just as the British Government slashes subsidies for solar power and gears up to open up large swathes of the countryside to fracking, a coalition of human rights lawyers and academics have announced an international tribunal to put fracking “on trial”.
Based on a descendent of the Vietnam War Crimes Tribunal of the sixties, the so-called Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT), which is based in Rome, is an internationally recognized public opinion tribunal. It functions independently of state jurisdictions.
From June 1979 to the present date, the PPT has held some 40 sessions, including examining the world’s worst chemical disaster at Bhopal in the early eighties which killed thousands of people, injuring hundreds of thousands.
Tribunals apply internationally recognized human rights law and policy to cases brought before them and are nearly identical to traditional courtroom proceedings.
What this allows is ordinary people to compile and submit prima facie evidence about how the shale gas industry has impacted their health, their environment, their livelihood or human rights.
Hearings will be held both in the United States, which has been at the forefront of the fracking boom and the UK, and will take place in front of five to seven jurists experts in international human rights law.
This said, the PPT will be inviting witness testimony from citizens all over the world who will be invited to also hold preliminary mini-tribunals in their own country.
The experts will then decide whether there is sufficient evidence to indict certain nation states on charges of “failing to adequately uphold universal human rights as a result of allowing unconventional oil and gas extraction in their jurisdictions.”
One of the organisers, Dr. Tom Kerns, Director of the Environment and Human Rights Advisory in Oregon USA said: “The Tribunal will consider the human rights dimensions of a range of potential impacts: human and animal health, environmental, climatic, seismic, hydrologic and economic impacts, as well as those on local physical and social infrastructures.”
Dr. Damien Short, Director of the Human Rights Consortium at the University of London, and another one of the instigators of the PPT, added that “Fracking has taken place around the world in spite of serious public opposition and with large numbers of people alleging that their human rights have been ignored by those who supposedly represent them. This PPT aims to consider those allegations in an even handed and judicial way.”
The hearings are not due to start until the Spring of 2017, giving communities affected by fracking enough time to compile the evidence of impact and harm.
Meanwhile, the British Government’s plans to slash subsidies to solar was widely condemned yesterday. Britain’s sole Green MP, Caroline Lucas labeled the Government plans as “short sighted”.
“This cut would further undermine Britain’s commitment to meeting our climate change targets and deepen our addiction to dirty fossil fuels,” she said.
The 2016 contender says tax credits for the oil and gas sector should be eliminated.
By Clare Foran, July 23, 2015
Jeb Bush.(Andy Jacobsohn/Getty Images)
Jeb Bush wants to get rid of tax credits for the oil and gas industry.
“I think we should phase out, through tax reform, the tax credits for wind, for solar, for the oil and gas sector, for all that stuff,” the 2016 Republican candidate said in New Hampshire on Wednesday, according to a video recorded by grassroots environmental group 350 Action.
“I don’t think we should pick winners and losers,” Bush added, saying: “I think tax reform ought to be to lower the rate as far as you can and eliminate as many of these subsidies, all of the things that impede the ability for a dynamic way to get to where we need to get, which is low-cost energy that is respectful of the environment.”
Bush’s comments arrived in response to questions from a 350 Action activist after the 2016 Republican contender appeared at an event hosted by the conservative advocacy group Americans for Prosperity in Manchester, New Hampshire.
When pressed by the activist on whether he would get rid of all fossil-fuel subsidies, Bush replied: “All of them. Wind, solar, all renewables, and oil and gas.”
