Federal Court Order: Explosive DOT-111 “Bomb Train” Oil Tank Cars Can Continue to Roll
By Steve Horn, 1/23/15
A U.S. federal court has ordered a halt in proceedings until May in a case centering around oil-by-rail tankers pitting the Sierra Club and ForestEthics against the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). As a result, potentially explosive DOT-111 oil tank cars, dubbed “bomb trains” by activists, can continue to roll through towns and cities across the U.S. indefinitely.
“The briefing schedule previously established by the court is vacated,” wrote Chris Goelz, a mediator for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. “This appeal is stayed until May 12, 2015, or pending publication in the Federal Register of the final tank car standards and phase out of DOT-111 tank cars, whichever occurs first.”
Initially, DOT told the public it would release its draft updated oil-by-rail regulations by March 31, but now will wait until May 12 to do so. As reported by The Journal News, the delay came in the aftermath of pressure from Big Oil and Big Rail.
“In a joint filing, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) and the American Petroleum Institute (API) contend the tank car industry doesn’t have the capacity to retrofit the estimated 143,000 tank cars that would need to be modernized to meet the new specifications,” wrote The Journal News. “Nor can manufacturers build new tank cars fast enough, they say.”
The “bomb trains” carrying volatile crude oil obtained via hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) from the Bakken Shale, then, will continue to roll unimpeded for the foreseeable future. They will do so in the same DOT-111 rail cars that put the fracked oil-by-rail safety issue on the map to begin with — the July 2013 deadly explosion in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec.
“The courts and the administration are dragging their feet on common sense safety steps that will take the most dangerous oil tanker cars off the tracks, slow down these trains, and help emergency responders prepare for accidents,” Eddie Scher, communications director for ForestEthics, told DeSmogBlog.
“We filed our lawsuit because the DOT is not moving fast enough on safety. This court’s decision ignored the imminent threat to the 25 million Americans who live in the blast zone and the communities around the nation that don’t have the luxury of waiting for DOT and the rail and oil industry lobbyists to finish their rule.”
Groups Question Industry Influence on Oil Train Safety Rules
Freedom of Information Requests Target Five Federal Agencies, Nearly 100 Lobbyists
By Eddie Scher, Jan 15, 2015
Today four public interest groups requested records exchanged between five US government agencies and nearly 100 oil and rail industry representatives on new oil train safety standards. The Department of Transportation announced yesterday that the agency would miss the January 15 deadline set by Congress and issue final rules by May 12, 2015.
“New oil train safety standards are decades late: the National Transportation Safety Board first called antiquated DOT-111 tank cars unsafe for hauling crude oil in 1991,” says Ross Hammond, ForestEthics US campaigns director. “But the administration seems to have trouble asking the oil and rail industry for common sense safety standards like speed limits, sharing information with firefighters, and a ban of the most dangerous cars.”
The Freedom of Information Act requests filed by ForestEthics, Communities for a Better Environment, Ezra Prentice Homes Tenants Association (Albany, NY), and Citizens Acting or Rail Safety (La Crosse, WI) name 97 individual lobbyists from the American Petroleum Institute, Association of American Railroads and specific oil and rail companies, including Chevron, Tesoro, and Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF). Among the lobbyists named are six former members of Congress: Trent Lott, Vin Weber, John Breaux, Steve LaTourette, Max Sandlin and Bill Lipinski.
“The public has the right to know how an army of lobbyists is influencing the Department of Transportation,” says Ross Hammond, ForestEthics US campaigns director. “Oil trains carrying millions of gallons of toxic, explosive crude oil threaten the 25 million Americans who live in the blast zone. DOT should listen their own safety experts and quickly finalize strong new standards that take DOT-111s off the tracks, slow these trains down, prepare first responders and protect families.”
Government agencies and officials covered by this FOIA request are US Department of Transportation, National Transportation Safety Board, Surface Transportation Board, Federal Railroad Administration, and Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA).
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ForestEthics demands that corporations and government protect community health, the climate, and our wild places. We’ve secured the protection of 65 million acres of wilderness by pushing major companies to shift hundreds of millions of dollars to responsible purchasing. www.ForestEthics.org
U.S. oil train rule changes would have side effects
By Brian Tumulty, January 13, 2015
Railroad oil tanker cars parked at the Port of Albany. Each week between 20 and 35 freight trains pulling such tankers roll through Monroe Coundy. (Photo: Mike Groll / AP file photo 2014)
WASHINGTON – Long-distance passenger and freight rail service could be headed for gridlock later this year if trains hauling crude oil and ethanol are limited to 40 miles per hour.
And it could get worse. If the controversial Keystone XL pipeline doesn’t win approval, the American Petroleum Institute estimates “an additional 700,000 barrels per day” will need to be shipped by freight rail. That would require an additional 1,000 rail tank cars every day to transport the tar sands oil the pipeline was intended to carry from Canada to the U.S.
Passengers in the tens of thousands per year travel on trains that stop in Rochester and could potentially be affected by the decisions that will soon be made.
The speed limit, proposed by federal regulators, would cause “severe disruption of freight and passenger rail service across the U.S.,” according to the National Shippers Strategic Transportation Council, a trade group.
The Association of American Railroad says the 40 mph speed limit, and a related proposal requiring freight trains carrying crude oil or ethanol to have electronically controlled pneumatic brakes, “would have a devastating impact on the railroads’ ability to provide their customers with efficient rail transportation.”
Amtrak, which carried 31 million passengers overall in 2013, runs most of its trains on tracks owned by the nation’s major freight railroads. Trains on the Albany-Syracuse-Rochester-Buffalo corridor use a pair of tracks owned by Florida-based CSX Transportation.
Under federal law, freight railroads are required to give priority to Amtrak as they dispatch trains on their systems. But the system has always been imperfect, and scheduling conflicts with freight trains, along with numerous other problems, have made delays a fact of life on most Amtrak routes.
Amtrak supports imposing the 40 mph speed limit only in federally defined “high-threat urban areas” where the risk of a catastrophe is considered greatest. There are just over 50 around the country, including the New York City metro area and Buffalo.
“Anything more restrictive, if it affected network fluidity, could have adverse effects on Amtrak,” the railroad wrote.
The challenge for the oil and gas industry is continuing to safely transport crude oil from new oil fields to refineries.
About 70 percent of crude oil produced in the Bakken Shale Formation of North Dakota and Montana is shipped by rail, according to the oil refineries trade organization.
And production is continuing to increase, from less than 200,000 barrels per day in 2008 to nearly 1.2 million barrels per day in 2014, according to the American Petroleum Institute. Freight railroads predict production eventually will reach 2 million barrels a day.
About 70 percent of ethanol also is transported by rail.
Meanwhile, the nation’s rail network is operating at near capacity. Last year, its choke points resulted in a dramatic drop in the on-time performance of many long-distance Amtrak passenger trains.
Amtrak’s Capitol Limited route between Chicago and Washington had an on-time performance of less than 3 percent in the three months ending Sept. 30. Amtrak provided bus service between Chicago and Toledo, Ohio, for six days in October because some trains were running 10 hours late.
Freight rail shipments from grain elevators faced delays of up to three months a year ago. Freight railroads weren’t prepared for harsh winter weather on top of increased crude oil shipments.
Freight railroads say they’re spending billions of dollars to improve capacity — they largely avoided delays in shipping farm commodities following this year’s harvest — but a 40 mph speed limit for oil trains could undermine that.
“The impact on railroad capacity can be compared to traveling on a two-lane highway,” the Association of American Railroads said. “Slowing down one car or truck affects trailing vehicles. Similarly, slowing down one train affects trailing movements, except that the impact on railroad traffic is much worse because the opportunities to pass are much more constrained than on a highway.”
Trains can pass only at widely spaced locations on a railroad, whether single or double-tracked. Research on rail capacity has shown, and rail operators have long understood, that reducing speeds reduces network capacity.”
At issue is safety in the wake of several derailments of oil trains. The most notable, in the Quebec community of Lac-Mégantic in July 2013, killed 47 people.
Many rail industry groups and shippers say federal efforts to improve the safety of “unit” trains carrying at least 100 tankers loaded with crude oil should focus on fixing faulty tracks. New speed reductions, they say, should be limited to the most densely populated areas.
The National Transportation Safety Board lists improvements in rail tanker car safety as one of its 10 most wanted safety improvements for 2015. It also lists installation of “positive train controls,” which automatically slow trains going into a curve if the operator doesn’t.
“The NTSB does not have a specific position on any specific speed limits but what we do want to make sure first of all is, does the train stay on the track,” said Robert Sumwalt, a member of the NTSB board. “And PTC (positive train controls) is one good way of ensuring that the trains stay on the track. We want to make sure if they do derail, there’s adequate protection in the tank cars. And finally if the tank cars breach, we want to make sure there’s adequate emergency response.”
Federal officials late last year received more than 3,400 public comments on an array of proposals aimed at safer transportation of crude oil by rail. They include a new design for tank cars, retrofitting existing tank cars, installing new braking systems and speed restrictions.
Three possible speed-limit scenarios been proposed — one would limit oil trains to 40 mph at all times. Another would impose the 40 mph limit only when trains pass through regions of at least 100,000 people, and another would impose it only in cities defined as high-threat urban areas.
Trains using a new generation of safer tank cars would be allowed to travel at 50 mph.
The proposed speed limit would apply to “high-hazard flammable trains,” which federal transportation officials would define as any train carrying at least 20 tankers loaded with crude oil or ethanol.
Railroads say 20 cars is too few because freight trains add and subtract cars as they move along the nation’s vast rail network.
The average unit train has 94 tank cars, according to the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers association, which represents the owners of 120 refineries.
New California Law Aims to Ease Oil Train Safety Worries
January 7, 2015, by Sonseeahray Tonsall
ANTELOPE- Last May, after devastating rail crashes made more damaging by a particular kind of crude oil being carried, the U.S. Department of Transportation issued an emergency order.
It said if more than a million gallons of that crude was moving on the rails, local emergency crews had to be notified.
California’s legislature tried to make that kind of notice permanent – not just for oil but also for 25 of the most toxic substances traveling the rails.
But there may be a hitch in California’s new law.
“Yesterday was a good example of a derailment of a toxic substance, except it didn’t leak and there was no immediate threat. But imagine that same rail car going through the Feather River Canyon and polluting the water source for millions of people in California,” Kelly Huston, Deputy Director of the California Office of Emergency Services said.
A new state law in effect as of January 1 is supposed to reduce the worry of some of those what-ifs, especially when it comes to the growing number of rail cars shuttling through the Sacramento region, loaded with the kind of highly flammable Bakken crude oil that’s exploded in other train derailments.
“Accidents happen, but our job as a society is to make sure accidents don’t become tragedies,” Assemblyman Mike Gatto said.
The Glendale area democrat co-sponsored AB 380, the new law requiring rail companies to notify emergency responders of what threats could be riding the rails in their area.
“What’s unique about this legislation is that we’re working with the railroads to try to provide more real-time information…sort of like an Amtrak schedule,” Huston said.
Right now, those details come to emergency crews after the fact, not in advance when they could prepare.
The other unfortunately unique thing about this law is that rail carriers can still argue they don’t have to follow it, even though implementation is supposed to be complete by January 31.
“It is a delicate balance because the railroads are federally regulated which means federal laws pre-empt state laws in most cases,” Huston said.
So even though California’s done all it can, it remains to be seen if rail companies will cooperate with a law that could save lives.
Under the continuing federal emergency order, Cal OES gets the shipment information from rail carriers.
Huston would like to create a system that first responders can log in to themselves and get the information real-time.
The effort would not compromise a oil producer’s proprietary information, they said.
