Tag Archives: Federal Regulation (U.S.)

Responding to criticism, Feds won’t weaken oil-train public disclosure rules

Repost from the Philadelphia Inquirer

Feds won’t weaken oil-train public disclosure rules

By Paul Nussbaum, Inquirer Staff Writer, May 29, 2015, 5:20 PM
An oil train passes through Philadelphia on April 15, 2015. (Jon Snyder/Daily News)
An oil train passes through Philadelphia on April 15, 2015. (Jon Snyder/Daily News)

Responding to Congressional and public criticism, federal regulators said Friday they will not weaken rules requiring certain disclosures about trains transporting crude oil and other hazardous materials.

The Inquirer reported this week that new oil-train rules issued May 7 by the U.S. Department of Transportation would end a 2014 requirement for railroads to share information about large volumes of crude oil with state emergency-response commissions.

Instead, railroads were to share information directly with some emergency responders, but the information would be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act and state public records laws.

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

But the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, an arm of the transportation department, said Friday it will not make the change.

Instead, the existing rule “will remain in full force and effect until further notice while the agency considers options for codifying the May 2014 disclosure requirement on a permanent basis,” the agency said.

Saying that “transparency is a critical piece of the federal government’s comprehensive approach to safety,” the agency said it supports “the public disclosure of this information to the extent allowed by applicable state, local, and tribal laws.”

U.S. Sen. Robert Casey (D., Pa.) was one of nine senators who asked the agency to keep the existing rule in place.

Casey said Friday he was “pleased” by the agency’s decision.

“First responders who risk their lives when trains derail deserve to know what chemicals they could be dealing with when they get to the scene,” Casey said in a statement.

The disclosure rules about train routes and general numbers of trains apply to all trains carrying 1 million gallons or more of crude oil from the Baaken oil deposit in North Dakota.

Firefighter battalion chief: Russian roulette on the railways

Repost from Chico News & Review
[Editor:  This article is well-written and documents gutsy analyses by a regional firefighter and County officials who understand that local safety is at the mercy of federal regulators.  Three years of Russian roulette – and more.  A “must read.”  – RS]

Russian roulette on the railways

Butte County train tracks are Bakken-free for now, but emergency responders fear a return of the volatile fuel
By Evan Tuchinsky, 05.21.15
Cal Fire Battalion Chief Russ Fowler says the Department of Transportation’s new rules regarding traincar safety are insufficient. PHOTO COURTESY OF CAL FIRE

What is ‘Bakken’?

The light crude oil known as Bakken comes from fracking a geologic formation of that name under North Dakota, Montana and Canada. Less dense and with less carbon, light crudes yield more gasoline than heavier crudes, but also are more volatile.

Trains crash. That fact hit home last week when a passenger train derailed in Philadelphia and also last year, on Nov. 26, when a cargo train derailed in the Feather River Canyon.

The risk of devastation multiplies when the derailed train carries volatile crude oil. A recent spate of those accidents has garnered national attention, too, prompting the U.S. Department of Transportation (DoT) to release new regulations governing the conveyance of flammable liquids. The measures have drawn near-unanimous opposition, though, and done little to assuage lingering local fears.

“My constituents have raised concerns and the Board [of Supervisors] is concerned,” said Butte County Supervisor Maureen Kirk, who represents Chico. “We’re hoping that some of the legislation and some of the discussion that comes forward will make even stiffer requirements on the transport of this Bakken oil.”

The DoT regulations came out May 1. Five days later, another oil train crashed, in North Dakota. By last Friday (May 15), both the petroleum industry and environmentalists had filed legal challenges to the DoT’s so-called “final rule.”

The International Association of Fire Fighters also has voiced objections. Representing more than 300,000 firefighters in North America, the IAFF protested a provision that allows railroads to keep the contents of their trains confidential—under the banner of national security.

Russ Fowler, battalion chief with Cal Fire Butte County and coordinator of the local Interagency Hazardous Materials Team, has additional concerns. DoT regulations phase out tank cars that are not up to the current safety standard, rather than pull them off the rails for retrofitting or retirement. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx has argued that the alternative would result in increased oil-tanker traffic on highways.

Fowler says one particular railcar commonly used to carry volatile Bakken crude oil, the DOT-111, “just [wasn’t] designed for that product.” Since railroads have until 2018 to get those cars up to standard, “we have three years of potential Russian roulette on our hands if light crude oil is transported down the Feather River Canyon like it was done last fall.”

Cal Fire has communicated with BNSF Railway, Fowler said, and has been told no crude oil deliveries have come through Butte County this year. “I have no reason not to believe them,” he added, though he’s seen DOT-111s riding on Chico tracks.

Lena Kent, BNSF’s spokeswoman for California, confirmed by email that “we are not currently transporting Bakken crude in your county.” She also wrote: “We do provide information to the Office of Emergency Services in California.”

That’s in contrast with last year, when train cars carrying millions of gallons of the explosive oil, reportedly around one shipment per week, did make their way way along the Feather River Canyon. Experts tie the reduction of imports to a reduced demand for the fuel, a lighter type that’s similar to gasoline and thus extremely volatile.

While Cal Fire dreads the prospect of an urban crash, the Feather River Canyon presents a distinct set of frets.

Train tracks head into remote areas that are difficult for emergency responders to reach. Access roads don’t always run adjacent to the rail route—not even parallel in certain spots. Depending on where a crash occurred, spilled oil could contaminate the Feather River and Lake Oroville—a major source of water for California—or could start a forest fire should it ignite.

Even without a blaze or river release, “it would make an ugly, oily mess in the canyon,” Fowler said. “It would be a terrible environmental disaster.”

Butte County supervisors articulated such concerns to the California Public Utility Commission and the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, before the DoT released its regulations. OES responded by saying the state is investing in “purchasing new Type II hazardous material emergency response units” and in “local training specific to … rail safety incidents.”

For Supervisor Doug Teeter, the board chair who represents the Ridge, that’s little assurance. He has a powerless feeling—believing “it’s just a matter of time” before an accident happens locally, yet knowing “as a county we have no control” over the rails.

“We’re at the mercy of the federal regulators,” he continued. “All we’re really getting is a little response on improved training and equipment. That is not nearly enough to handle a 100-car spill.”

Either in populated or unpopulated areas.

“We as a hazmat team plan for worst-case scenarios,” Fowler said. “Just because you plan for a worst-case scenario doesn’t mean you can mitigate the worst-case scenario, because there are things that can happen that are so catastrophic that it would overwhelm local resources until more regional or statewide resources could come in to help.”

Should legal challenges fail, and in the absence of local authority, a remedy to the DoT regulations remains: Congress. Teeter recently met with a representative of Sen. Barbara Boxer. Meanwhile, North State Congressman John Garamendi has introduced legislation to make light crude safer for rail transport.

Teeter encourages constituents to write congressional representatives and senators. He finds encouragement even in the controversial DoT regulations, which arose amid an uproar.

“Maybe now we’ll have a voice,” Teeter said. “Maybe something can happen.”

 

Benicia Herald covers Valero environmental delay

[Editor:  The Benicia Herald’s front page story  makes no mention  of the widespread criticism of the Department of Transportation’s inadequate new safety rules.  In fact, the article devotes 23 paragraphs (!) to the DOT’s trumpeting of the strengths of the new rules.  Nevertheless, the story serves as a thorough summary of DOT claims.   I hope my editorial adds some needed balance.  – RS]

News coverage: Crude-by-rail report delayed again

By Donna Beth Weilenman, 5/22/15

Long-awaited report pushed back to end of August by federal tank car rule

Principal Planner Amy Million said Friday the city would need an additional two months to finish the environmental report on a proposed project that would allow Valero to bring crude oil by train car to its Benicia refinery.

The Recirculated Draft Environmental Impact Report (RDEIR) of the Valero Crude-By-Rail project, the latest version of a study of the environmental impacts of the proposed extension of railroad tracks into the refinery’s property, was expected to be released June 30.

However, Million said because of a May 1 ruling by the federal Department of Transportation, the new anticipated release date is Aug. 31.

She said the decision to delay the document’s release came because of the announcement of new regulations that apply to the types of tanker cars that can be used to transport crude oil by train.

“We were looking at the impact of rail travel, and we were assuming the use of the 1232s,” Million said. The new DOT rule would change that to DOT-117s, she said.

Crude oil had been carried by DOT-111 tank cars, but much of the oil now is the lighter, sweeter crude from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota, which is considered more flammable.

Locally and nationally, public concern rose about the safety of crude-by-rail shipment after a series of accidents involving DOT-111 cars led to oil spills, explosions and, in the case of a runaway train that overturned July 2013 in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, the death of 47 people.

Stronger tank cars, designated CPC 1232, have been introduced as a safer way to package and carry the sweeter crude.

However, some derailments, spills and fires have involved those rail cars as well. About 35 residents of Heimdal, N.D., were evacuated May 6 — just five days after the new rule was announced — when six tank cars caught fire after a BNSF train loaded with Bakken crude derailed two miles away. The cars were unjacketed CPC-1232 cars.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx issued a statement May 1 that new tank cars built after Oct. 1 must meet new DOT Specification 117 design or performance criteria, and that existing tank cars must be refitted with the same key components.

In Benicia, “The delay will provide the city with the necessary time to include additional analysis of the new regulations,” Million wrote in an announcement posted on the city website.

“The RDEIR will have a 45-day comment period, beginning Aug. 31,” she wrote.

During that period, the city will conduct public hearings to accept community comments on the document. Once the comment period closes, city employees and Benicia’s consultant, ESA, will complete a final environmental impact report.

That document will provide responses to all comments, from those made to the draft environmental report as well as the recirculated environmental report, Million said.

“The Final EIR and the project will then be discussed at subsequent public hearings,” she said.

Valero Benicia Refinery submitted its application for the project early in 2013, when Charlie Knox was the city’s director of Community Development.

Construction of the rail extensions is an industrial use, and the refinery’s property is in an industrial zone, he said in March 2013, when describing the project to The Herald.

Normally Valero wouldn’t have had to apply for a use permit for such a compatible endeavor, he said. But the cost of the project was estimated that year at $30 million, exceeding the $20 million threshold that triggers the use permit process, he said, and Valero wasn’t allowed to break the project into component parts so it could be approved and built without making a presentation to the Planning Commission.

In the subsequent years, the city chose to subject the project to a full Environmental Impact Report to meet requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act.

In his May 1 announcement, Foxx said the DOT’s new rule was developed by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and Federal Railroad Administration, in tandem with Canadian authorities.

He said it focuses on safety improvements that are designed to prevent accidents, mitigate consequences in the event of an accident and support emergency response.

Elements of the new rule as cited by Foxx are an enhanced tank car standard; an aggressive, risk-based retrofitting schedule for the older tank cars that carry crude oil and ethanol; mandatory braking standards for certain trains to reduce potential severity of accidents; new protocols for trains carrying large volumes of flammable liquids; and new sampling and testing requirements to improve classification of transported energy products.

Among the new operation protocols are new routing requirements, speed restrictions and informing of local governmental agencies about those operations.

Lisa Raitt, Canada minister of transport, issued a similar announcement, saying the new tank car standards there would align with the United States standards.

“Safety has been our top priority at every step in the process for finalizing this rule, which is a significant improvement over the current regulations and requirements and will make transporting flammable liquids safer,” Foxx said.

“Our close collaboration with Canada on new tank car standards is recognition that the trains moving unprecedented amounts of crude by rail are not U.S. or Canadian tank cars,” he said. “They are part of a North American fleet and a shared safety challenge.”

In Raitt’s announcement, the minister said, “This stronger, safer, more robust tank car will protect communities on both sides of our shared border. Through strong collaboration, we have developed a harmonized solution for North America’s tank car fleet. I am hopeful that this kind of cooperation will be a model for future Canada-U.S. partnership on transportation issues.”

Foxx said other federal agencies also are working to improve safety in transporting flammable liquids.

The Department of Homeland Security, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Energy (DOE) as well as the Obama administration are collaborating on safety strategies, he said.

In particular, DOE has developed an initiative to research and characterize tight and conventional crude oils based on key chemical and physical properties, Foxx said, and to identify properties that could make combustion more likely or more severe during handling and transport.

He said the improved standards for new and existing flammable-liquid cars would be a 9/16-inch tank shell, 11-gauge jacket, half-inch full-height head shield, thermal protection and improved pressure relief valves and bottom outlet valves. Existing tank cars must be retrofitted with the same components.

The new rule sets a three-year deadline to replace the entire fleet of DOT-111 tank cars for Packing Group I, which covers most crude shipped by rail. All non-jacketed CPC-1232s in the same service must meet the new standards or be replaced in about five years.

Braking requirements for high-hazard flammable trains (HHFT) include having a functioning, two-way, end-of-train device or a distributed power braking system.

High-hazard flammable unit trains (HHFUT), or trains with 70 or more tank cars carrying Class 3 flammable liquids with at least one tank car with packing Group 1 materials, must have electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) braking system by Jan. 1, 2021.

The rule requires all other HHFUTs to have ECP braking systems installed after 2023.

“This important, service-proven technology has been operated successfully for years in certain services in the United States, Australia, and elsewhere,” Foxx said.

The rule sets a 50-mph speed limit on all HHFTs in all areas. Any HHFT containing tank cars that don’t meet the required enhanced tank car standards are restricted to 40 mph in high-threat urban areas.

Railroads operating HHFTs must analyze their routes using at least 27 safety and security criteria, such as track type, class, maintenance schedule and track grades and curvatures. The railroad must select routes based on those findings, Foxx said.

In addition, the new rule is expected to assure that railroads provide state, regional, local and tribal officials with a railroad point of contact for information about routing hazardous materials through their jurisdictions.

Better sampling and testing programs for unrefined petroleum-based products must be developed, documented and employed, and products must be packaged according to those test results, according to the new rule. Information from those tests must be supplied to DOT employees upon request.

Foxx said the new rule addresses recommendations from the National Transportation Safety Board, including those for improved safety features for tank cars carrying ethanol and crude oil, an aggressive schedule to replace or retrofit existing tank cars, better thermal protection and high-capacity pressure relief valves for tank cars used to carry flammable liquids, better-planned routes for trains carrying flammable products, and stricter inspection of shippers to assure flammable liquids are properly classified and documented.

A summary of the new rule is available at www.dot.gov/mission/safety/rail-rule-summary.

Forum: Valero report not likely to withstand further scrutiny

By Roger Straw, 5/26/15

THE CITY OF BENICIA issued an announcement on May 21, delaying its release of a revised draft environmental impact report on Valero Benicia Refinery’s proposal to construct an offloading facility for delivery of crude by rail. With this delay, the city will have spent more than two and a half years processing Valero’s proposal and responding to the objections of concerned residents, experts and nearby officials.

Valero’s application for a use permit came to city staff in December 2012. In May 2013, Benicia’s Community Development director issued a Notice of Intent and a Mitigated Negative Declaration, concluding that the proposal with mitigations was so benign as to not even need environmental review.

Following an outcry and organized opposition, the city commenced a full environmental review in August 2013. The Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) was released, after several delays, in June 2014. That review received an avalanche of criticism, including expert local analysis, professional review and letters from residents and area governing bodies, as well as a highly critical letter from California Attorney General Kamala Harris.

After yet another lengthy delay, the city announced in February 2015 that, in response to the magnitude of public criticism, project consultants would revise the DEIR and release it by June 30 for recirculation and another 45-day public comment period. Now, according to the city of Benicia’s announcement last Thursday, the new two-month delay (until Aug. 31) will give consultants “time to include additional analysis of the new regulations announced on May 1, 2015 by the Department of Transportation to strengthen safe transportation of flammable liquids by rail.”

The city consultant’s analysis, seemingly favoring Valero’s proposal from the outset, will likely make the case that new federal safety standards strengthen environmental protections for this project and improve Valero’s chances for landing a use permit. This analysis, of course, will come under heavy fire because of the inadequacy of the new federal rules, and likely will not withstand the scrutiny of Benicia citizens, officials and regional authorities and stakeholders.

All along, leaders of Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community (BSHC) have stressed that Valero’s proposal is fatally flawed as shown in a list of significant DEIR failures, including the longstanding lack of adequate federal safety regulations governing rail transport of high-hazard flammable liquids (see https://beniciaindependent.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/BSHC_Comments_on_DEIR.pdf — especially Section 2, #3, pp. 13-15).

More recently, BSHC has joined a chorus of national and international environmentalists and elected officials who are dismissive of the new rules issued by the Department of Transportation, which fail to adequately govern oil train routing, speed, braking systems and public notification, and leave entirely too many years for retirement and retrofitting of unsafe tank cars and the design and manufacture of tank cars to newer, safer standards.

BSHC and others have called for an immediate moratorium on all shipment of crude oil by rail, and a speedy transition to clean and renewable energy sources that will “leave the oil in the soil.”

Roger Straw is a Benicia resident and member of Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community.

 

Tesoro & Phillips 66 building crude railcars stronger than new US rules require

Repost from Reuters
[Editor:  These tank cars exceed the new standard, but still fail on several counts.  For instance, note the closing sentences here: “Hack said Tesoro is talking with Union Tank Car on possibly outfitting crude railcars to add enhanced brakes before the 2021 deadline.  ‘We have some time to make that decision,’ he said.”  You can be sure that every refinery seeking permits for crude by rail will crow that they, too, have ordered newer, safer tank cars.  Get ready, Benicia!   – RS]

EXCLUSIVE-Tesoro building crude railcars stronger than new US rules require

By Kristin Hayes, May 18, 2015 4:59pm BST

(Reuters) – U.S. refiner Tesoro Corp has ordered new crude oil railcars with features that surpass safety standards that federal regulators set this month, executives told Reuters.

The 210 tank cars being built in northern Louisiana are so-called pressure cars, with the same design as those that carry liquid petroleum gases such as propane and butane, gas cargoes that are more flammable than crude oil.

They will be delivered in the coming months after being ordered in early 2014.

The new federal rules for all crude and ethanol railcars built after Oct. 1 of this year do not require strength to the level of a pressure car but are stronger than the standards adopted by the industry in 2011.

Tesoro, like other oil-by-rail players, knew the federal standards were coming and the basics of what they would likely be. But the company went further with a stronger car, “which is the primary thing we control,” C.J. Warner, Tesoro’s head of strategy and business development, told Reuters.

The order was a sign the refiner wanted to get ahead of the coming regulations and avoid potential capacity bottlenecks at companies that build tank cars as shippers must now renovate their fleets.

Booming North American onshore production spurred sharp growth in moving oil by rail, particularly for U.S. West and East coast refiners which otherwise must depend on more costly imports. No major crude pipelines move oil from the Midcontinent west across the Rocky Mountains or east through the Appalachians and densely populated northeastern states.

Fiery derailments, caused in some cases by track failures, have become more frequent as oil-by-rail and crude-only trains carrying 100 cars or more went from nearly nothing five years ago to more than 1 million barrels per day late last year.

Opposition to moving oil by rail spiked on safety concerns, prompting the U.S. Department of Transportation and Canada to impose new railcar safety standards.

Tesoro isn’t the only refiner that didn’t wait for word from the U.S. DOT to order stronger cars.

Phillips 66 confirmed to Reuters that it also last year ordered 350 non-pressurized new cars that mostly match the new DOT standard. Those cars will be delivered by year-end, the company said.

THICKER HULLS

Both sets of new cars have 9/16-inch-thick hulls, steel shields on the front and back and protections for valves and fittings where crude goes in on top and drains out the bottom, as the new rules require, company executives said. Tesoro’s design modifies those fittings to handle crude rather than just LPGs.

Tesoro’s cars also have test pressure specifications of 200 pounds per square inch of internal pressure, twice that for non-pressurized cars. A test pressure is typically 20 to 40 percent of how much pressure it would take for the railcar to burst.

That level of test pressure is standard for cars that transport LPGs or highly poisonous substances such as hydrogen cyanide, according to the Association of American Railroads.

“When we saw the design, we were very comfortable that it would meet the new standards that we anticipated,” John Hack, Tesoro’s head of rail operations, told Reuters.

For Tesoro, which hopes to build the largest oil-by-rail facility in the United States in Washington state, it’s an investment in safety and continued access to cheaper North American crudes.

“It’s very important to us to continue to transport North American crude and get it from the Midcontinent out to the West Coast where it competes very nicely with the foreign crudes,” Warner said.

RETROFITS?

By last year most refiners, including Tesoro and Phillips 66, no longer accepted shipments in older, weaker railcars such as those used on a runaway crude train that careened into the small Quebec town of Lac Megantic in mid-2013, killing 47 people.

Early last year Tesoro needed to replace the last of its older cars and worked with its builder, Berkshire Hathaway Inc’s Union Tank Car, to develop the new design, Warner said.

Tesoro and Phillips 66 aim to use their newest cars in crude trains before deciding whether to order more. Both companies’ fleets meet the 2011 industry standard for cars with 7/16-inch-thick hulls and reinforced valves.

Those 7/16-inch cars don’t have to be thrown out, but to move in crude-only trains, they will need added protections, including ‘jackets’, or an extra layer of steel around the tank, according to the DOT rules.

Neither Tesoro’s nor Phillips 66’s new cars are equipped with specialized brakes that the DOT said crude-only trains must have starting in 2021 or be held to 30 miles per hour. An oil industry trade group is challenging that provision in court.

Hack said Tesoro is talking with Union Tank Car on possibly outfitting crude railcars to add enhanced brakes before the 2021 deadline.

“We have some time to make that decision,” he said.

(Reporting by Kristen Hays; Editing by Terry Wade and James Dalgleish)