December 12, 2014 by Donna Beth WeilenmanREP. MIKE THOMPSON’S H.R. 4681 passed the House on Thursday. File photo
President Barack Obama is poised to sign legislation from U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Napa, that would require security assessments of American oil refineries, including Valero Benicia Refinery, and railroad infrastructure, such as Union Pacific that has tracks through Benicia.
Austin Vevurka, Thompson’s spokesperson, said Thursday that Thompson’s legislation is part of House of Representatives Bill 4681, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015.
The bill requires the Department of Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis (DHSI&A) to conduct the intelligence assessment. Once the assessment is done, the department would send the results to the House and Senate intelligence committees and supply recommendations for improvements.
Thompson, Benicia’s representative in the House, said the recommendations would help officials better protect communities surrounding refineries and railways.
“Public safety is my number-one priority,” he said, “and through enhanced reporting we can better know if threats exist and how we can fix them.” He said the law “will help make sure we’re transporting and holding crude oil and other cargo through and in our communities in a safe manner.”
He said the improved reporting required by his legislation would help officials in their assessment of the types of threats American oil refineries and railways face, so those threats can be mitigated.
This could include improvements to security at refineries or upgrades to rail infrastructure that could decrease the likelihood of derailments, he said.
Many trains transporting crude oil from the Bakken shale formation of North Dakota run through Thompson’s California District 5. He said the crude oil from that region is regarded as highly flammable. He said his legislation would increase the likelihood the crude would be transported safely.
H.R. 4681 passed the House by a vote of 325-100, and has been sent to Obama to be signed into law.
Thompson bill addresses two important safety concerns
By Times-Herald staff report,
Legislation by U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson to improve security at America’s embassies and for rail and refineries passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday and now heads to the president’s desk for his signature, the St. Helena Democrat’s office announced.
H.R. 4681, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015, grew partially out of the 2012 terrorist attack out the U.S. Consular facility in Benghazi, Libya, Thompson said.
Studies done since the attack have identified the need for security personnel at U.S. diplomatic posts to receive threat information from the intelligence community in a more timely manner so they can request and receive security enhancements as needed, according to the announcement. Thompson’s legislation will address this need by enhancing information sharing, he said.
“Studies since the Benghazi attack have shown that we need to improve communication between our intelligence community and our diplomatic outposts, and this will make sure that happens,” Thompson said in the announcement.
Thompson’s legislation directs the Director of National Intelligence to provide a status assessment to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees of threat information sharing between the intelligence community and diplomatic security personnel, and to propose remedial action to help make sure security personnel at U.S. embassies can request and receive enhanced security in a timely manner.
The same bill also enhances rail and refinery security by requiring the Department of Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis to conduct an intelligence assessment of domestic oil refineries and related rail infrastructure security, Thompson’s office said. The assessment’s results are then to be submitted to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, along with any recommendations for improving those operations’ security. This aims to help officials better protect the communities surrounding refineries and railways from potential harm.
“Public safety is my number one priority and through enhanced reporting we can better know if threats exist and how we can fix them,” Thompson said.“This law will help make sure we’re transporting and holding crude oil and other cargo through and in our communities in a safe manner.”
Many trains transporting crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale formation run through Thompson’s congressional district. The crude oil from this region is regarded as highly flammable and this legislation will help make sure it’s transported safely, he said.
Most N.D. loads to Albany now under new volatility limits
By Brian Nearing, December 10, 2014
FILE – This Nov. 6, 2013 file photo shows a warning placard on a tank car carrying crude oil near a loading terminal in Trenton, N.D. Thousands of older rail tank cars that carry crude oil would be phased out within two years under regulations proposed in response to a series of fiery train crashes over the past year. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said the government’s testing of crude oil from the Bakken region of North Dakota and Montana shows the oil is on the high end of a range of volatility compared with other crude oils, meaning it’s more likely to ignite if spilled. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown, File)
New safety rules on Bakken crude oil shipments imposed by North Dakota will not affect about 80 percent of oil arriving daily on massive tanker trains at the Port of Albany. Some oil opponents in the Capital Region are criticizing the limit as toothless.
Amid opposition from oil companies, the North Dakota Industrial Commission set a limit late Tuesday that is supposed to reduce the volatility of Bakken crude — or potential explosiveness — before it can be shipped out of state on trains. Officials in New York and other states along the routes of oil trains had been pushing for a limit in after major accidents in Canada, and states including Alabama and Pennsylvania.
The new North Dakota standard is well above volatility found in Bakken crude by Canadian safety officials after 47 people were killed in a massive explosion and fire when a crude oil train derailed in Quebec in July 2013.
North Dakota’s new measure was praised as “aggressive” in a joint news release by state Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens and Transportation Commissioner Joan McDonald.
“Reducing the volatility of Bakken crude at the source protects public health, protects the environment and provides an additional safeguard for New Yorkers and communities across the country,” according to the prepared statement. Attempts to obtain further comment Wednesday from DEC were not successful.
“This does not really provide much of a margin of safety for the public. It still does not address the (Bakken) flammability issue,” said Chris Amato, a staff attorney with Earthjustice, a Washington, D.C.-based environmental legal group and DEC deputy commissioner for natural resources from 2007 to 2011.
In October, Amato’s group filed a petition with DEC claiming the state has the power to immediately ban the most common type of oil tanker rail cars — called DOT-111s — from entering the port loaded with flammable Bakken oil. DEC disagreed that it had the power to take such a step, which would have made Albany the first place in the country to bar the aging tankers, which in derailments have been prone to rupture, leading to fires and explosions.
Amato called the North Dakota volatility standard “better than nothing,” adding that DEC “has its head in the sand on all crude-by-rail issues.”
“The new rule has no effect, zero,” said Sandy Steubing, a spokeswoman for the group People of Albany United for Safe Energy, which wants crude oil shipments into Albany halted. “It is like setting a speed limit of 100 miles an hour and saying we will catch the cars going 120,” she said. “I don’t know if North Dakota just did this for show.”
“Reducing the volatility of crude oil at the source before shipping is welcome news and is something for which I have been advocating. But North Dakota hasn’t set a standard that challenges the oil industry enough,” said McCoy. And Steck, a fellow Democrat, said North Dakota also failed to require removal of hydrofracking chemicals from the Bakken, which he said makes the crude more flammable.
Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan said “any step that makes our community safer is a step in the right direction.”
Starting April 1, Bakken crude shipped out of the shale oil fields of North Dakota can have a vapor pressure of no more than 13.7 pounds per square inch (psi), slightly below a federal hazardous materials stability standard of 14.7 psi.
Bakken crude above this new standard would have to be treated with heat or pressure at the wells to remove its most volatile components.
North Dakota Mineral Resources Director Lynn Helms has said about 80 percent of Bakken crude being shipped already falls below this standard. But he also told the Associated Press that the change would “significantly change the characteristics of crude oil that’s going into market.”
A vapor pressure rating is a measurement of how rapidly a liquid evaporates into a gas and spreads into the air, making it more volatile and prone to explosion. The Bakken crude that caused the massive fireball in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, that killed 47 people had a psi of between 9 and 9.3, which is well below the new North Dakota safety standard.
In a report after the tragedy, the Canadian Transportation Safety Board found the Bakken crude involved was as volatile as gasoline. The volatility, combined with “large quantities of spilled crude oil, the rapid rate of release, and the oil’s … low viscosity were likely the major contributors to the large post-derailment fireball and pool fire,” the board found.
By comparison, crude oil pumped from beneath the Gulf of Mexico has a psi of about 3, making it much less likely to explode in an accident, according to figures reported this spring in the Wall Street Journal. In Texas, crude oil produced in the Eagle Ford shale formation has a psi of about 8.
According to the North Dakota Petroleum Council, the average Bakken crude has a psi of between 11.5 and 11.8, again below the new state safety standard.
The North Dakota standard is “far from a solution that the communities that are dealing with oil trains on a daily basis are looking for,” said Connor Bambrick, an analyst with Environmental Advocates of New York.
Repost from The Times Herald-Record, Middletown, NY [Editor: IMPORTANT – This new regulation would “condition” the oil, but it would fail to “stabilize” it. See Ron Schalow’s comment, including “This conditioning lowers the ignition temperature of crude oil—but not by much. It leaves in solution most of the culprit gases, including butane and propane….The only solution for safety is stabilization, which evaporates and re-liquefies nearly all of the petroleum gases for separate delivery to refiners. Stabilization is voluntarily and uniformly practiced in the Eagle Ford formation in Texas…” – RS]
New regulations could make crude oil transports less dangerous
By James Walsh, Dec. 10, 2014
The Industrial Commission of North Dakota has adopted requirements for treating volatile Bakken crude oil before it’s transported, rules that could reduce the chance of explosions on rail shipments through the Hudson Valley.
New York’s departments of Environmental Conservation and Transportation had written to North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple in October to support more stringent regulations. The commission also heard from more than two dozen representatives of oil companies and the petroleum industry.
Tuesday’s ruling gives crude producers until April 1 to comply or face fines of up to $12,500 for every day in violation, the commissioners said in a prepared statement.
The regulations include removing some gases before shipment and conditioning the crude oil to a vapor pressure not exceeding 13.7 pounds per square inch. National standards, according to the commission, allow pressures up to 14.7 psi.
While that reduces the chance of explosions, most train shipments remain in tanker cars apt to rupture in derailments and spill their volatile contents, said Kate Hudson, director of Riverkeeper’s watershed program.
“A train wreck that does not result in an explosion could still result in a significant oil spill,” she said.
Oil trains traversing the Hudson Valley typically haul 100 or more tanker cars, each capable of carrying 30,000 gallons. They travel near the Hudson River and through populated areas, including Kingston and Newburgh.
Environmentalists and the state are waiting for the federal Department of Transportation to issue rules for making safer cars. The federal DOT has proposed giving shippers two years to retrofit their cars, while oil and railroad industries have sought as long as seven years.
Concerns over Bakken crude shipments arose after 47 people were killed when a train derailed and exploded in Quebec in July 2013. An oil train wreck erupted into a giant fireball five months later, forcing the evacuation of a North Dakota town. Thousands of gallons of oil leaked into the James River in Lynchburg, Va., when a train derailed in May.
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