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(ACC Mentioned) More Than Half of US States Plan Chemicals Legislation in 2015
Feb 18, 2015 | Chemical Watch
At least 28 states are expected to see legislation and policies, aimed at managing chemicals in consumer products this year, according to analysis by the NGO, Safer States. -
Endocrine Disruption and BPA Use
Feb 18, 2015 | The Wall Street Journal
By Prof. Andrea C. Gore
Regarding your editorial “Snoopy Is Safe After All” (Feb. 12): The preponderance of scientific evidence indicates that bisphenol-A, known as BPA, and other endocrine-disrupting chemicals present a clear threat to public health. -
NRDC Accuses Vitter of Altering its Email to Show Collusion
Feb 18, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Jean Chemnick
The Natural Resources Defense Council says Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) altered the email he cited at last week's Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing to support his case that NRDC is wielding undue influence over U.S. EPA's regulatory process. -
NARUC President Edgar Talks Regulator Concerns on EPA Clean Power Plan
Feb 18, 2015 | E&E - TV
How are the country's utility regulators responding to the pending finalization of U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan? -
EPA Urged to Withdraw Ozone Proposal Based on New Asthma Study
Feb 18, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Amanda Peterka
An industry group yesterday called on U.S. EPA to withdraw its proposal to tighten the ozone standard, pointing to a recent study that ties the prevalence of asthma to race and poverty. -
Court Rejects Ohio City's Attempt to Block Fracking
Feb 18, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Ohio's highest court yesterday rejected a city's attempt to restrict oil and gas drilling within its borders -- joining the ranks of several states that have faced the question of whether "local control" by municipalities can coexist with state-level regulation. -
Trains are Carrying — and Spilling — A Record Amount of Oil
Feb 17, 2015 | The Washington Post
By Joby Warrick
When 14 tanker cars derailed and exploded Monday near tiny Mount Carbon, W.V., neighbors likened the fireball to a scene from the apocalypse. It was “like something Biblical, or wrath-of-God type stuff,”one resident said. -
Oil Train Fire Rekindles Push for Tanker Rules
Feb 18, 2015 | The Hill - Transportation
By Timothy Cama
The derailment and explosion of a train carrying more than 100 tank cars full of crude oil in West Virginia is sparking fresh calls for stronger rules to counter increased safety and health risks posed by the fast-expanding industry. -
New Oil Train Blast Stokes Call for Safety Rules
Feb 18, 2015 | Politico
By Kathryn A. Wolfe
The spectacular explosion of an oil train in West Virginia has underscored frustration over delays in implementing more forceful safety regulations for crude-carrying trains, many of which rumble through communities’ downtowns. -
Oil Train Derailments are on NTSB 'Most Wanted'
Feb 18, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Morning Energy
By Darius Dixon
National Transportation Safety Board investigators have started to dive into the oil train derailment that triggered a massive blaze in West Virginia on Monday and sent at least one rail car into the Kanawha River. -
Damaged Rail Cars Enjoy Lenient Rules as Oil Train Explosions Plague Small Towns
Feb 18, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
Rail cars hauling crude oil have had a bumpy ride over the past few years.
Industry and Association News - There are no clips to report at this time.
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Energy and Environment News
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(ACC Mentioned) More Than Half of US States Plan Chemicals Legislation in 2015
Feb 18, 2015 | Chemical Watch
At least 28 states are expected to see legislation and policies, aimed at managing chemicals in consumer products this year, according to analysis by the NGO, Safer States.
While several of them will address individual chemical restrictions, as many as 12 states will consider bills requiring manufacturers to identify, disclose and/or phase out chemicals of concern, a trend that Safer States national director, Sarah Doll, says has led retailers like Walmart to require the same of their suppliers (CW 3 March 2014). The states expected to act on disclosure policies are: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Massachusetts, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington. The Consumer Specialty Products Association (CSPA) has listed the “concept of regulation by retailers” a top issue for the group in 2015 (CW 5 February 2015).
Individual chemicals that will come under scrutiny include flame retardants, plastic components and preservatives like formaldehyde in cosmetics and consumer products. Continuing the trend of recent years, at least 11 states and the District of Columbia are expected to consider policies to phase out, or require labelling of, flame retardants in certain consumer products. The states are Alaska, California, Connecticut, Idaho, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Tennessee and Washington. And at least six states – Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey and New York – will take up legislation to address bisphenol A in children's products, food packaging and other articles, according to Safer States.
Last November's election resulted in a majority of state legislatures and governorships changing to Republican hands. But Ms Doll says it would not adversely affect state action on chemicals policy because an analysis of voting patterns show the votes are “overwhelmingly bipartisan”. Besides, Republicans are beginning to “show leadership” on the issue rather than just supporting legislation, she adds. “You are getting bipartisan introduction and Republican ownership in [states like] Washington and Oregon.”
As for whether the success of efforts in Congress to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) would slow the momentum in the states, Ms Doll says: “Clearly the states are stepping up in the absence of a strong federal law.” But states should continue to have a say, she says, when asked about the controversy over state preemption language in TSCA reform bills, introduced in Congress. “We urgently need to fix our nation's broken chemical regulatory system, but states must always play a role. They are more nimble and can respond to emerging threats much faster than the federal government.”
For the American Chemistry Council, the focus for state actions is “really trying to ensure that they maintain a science-based approach to assessments of chemicals in commerce and that they also, to the greatest extent possible, defer to the EPA’s assessment of chemicals' safety,” says ACC president, Cal Dooley (CW 5 February 2014).
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Endocrine Disruption and BPA Use
Feb 18, 2015 | The Wall Street Journal
By Prof. Andrea C. Gore
Regarding your editorial “Snoopy Is Safe After All” (Feb. 12): The preponderance of scientific evidence indicates that bisphenol-A, known as BPA, and other endocrine-disrupting chemicals present a clear threat to public health.
As of 2014, nearly 100 epidemiological studies have been published linking BPA with human health problems, most notably disorders of reproduction, behavior and energy balance, according to the introductory guide to endocrine-disrupting chemicals published by the Endocrine Society and IPEN.
Despite this, the FDA continues to judge BPA using standards that have little relevance to endocrine disrupters. Unlike poisons, endocrine disrupters can have different—and often more insidious—effects at low levels of exposure. The chemicals mimic, block or interfere with the body’s own hormones. Tiny amounts of these chemical messengers are enough to trigger significant biological changes, including birth defects during crucial stages of development.
The Teeguarden study cited in your editorial wasn’t designed the same way as past animal studies and may have missed signs of immediate BPA absorption. Regardless of whether people digest BPA or absorb it in other ways, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have estimated that more than 96% of Americans have BPA in their bodies.
Finding a smoking gun linking a specific chemical to a particular disease is challenging because scientists cannot ethically expose humans to a toxic chemical. However, a wealth of evidence supports a direct link between BPA and a variety of health problems.
Regulators need to take into account the risks of low-dose exposure, particularly on unborn children, to effectively evaluate the dangers BPA poses.
Prof. Andrea C. Gore
University of Texas at Austin
Editor in chief of Endocrinology
Austin, Texas
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NRDC Accuses Vitter of Altering its Email to Show Collusion
Feb 18, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Jean Chemnick
The Natural Resources Defense Council says Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) altered the email he cited at last week's Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing to support his case that NRDC is wielding undue influence over U.S. EPA's regulatory process.
At last week's committee hearing on EPA's Clean Power Plan, Vitter displayed a billboard showing an email NRDC's David Hawkins sent to EPA air and radiation senior counsel Joe Goffman in June 2013 advising Goffman that EPA does have the authority to write a model federal implementation plan (FIP) (E&ENews PM, Feb. 11).
The prominent Senate critic of EPA's climate rules said the email appeared to be the reason EPA opted to write a federal plan, which could be imposed on states that fail to submit approvable implementation strategies of their own by deadlines beginning in 2016.
"Prior to this email, had EPA even considered issuing a model FIP?" Vitter queried EPA acting air chief Janet McCabe, who was testifying before the committee.
NRDC has been a favorite target of congressional Republicans since The New York Timespublished an article last year hinting that the existing power plant draft rule relied heavily on an earlier proposal by the environmental group.
But NRDC says Vitter deliberately edited the email to better make its case. Clearly legible on the billboard is Hawkins' advice that EPA has the authority to promulgate a FIP even before states submit their plans -- something the agency announced last month it will do. But the green group notes that Vitter either puts in small print or deletes the rest of Hawkins' email -- which makes it clear that the longtime environmental lawyer is basing his advice to Goffman on the D.C. Circuit court's decision related to the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule. The court "discussed in an approving manner" the decision by President George W. Bush's EPA to write a FIP for its rule limiting emissions that cross state lines. But Vitter omitted Hawkins' reference to that case, apparently because it would undercut Vitter's charge that the Obama administration is colluding with environmental groups.
Vitter's office did not return calls for comment.
NRDC's federal communications director said Vitter's billboard flies in the face of his claim to prioritize transparency in discussing EPA regulations.
"We thought it was very selective editing, to put it politely," he said.
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NARUC President Edgar Talks Regulator Concerns on EPA Clean Power Plan
Feb 18, 2015 | E&E - TV
How are the country's utility regulators responding to the pending finalization of U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan? During today's OnPoint, from the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners' winter meetings, Lisa Edgar, president of NARUC and a commissioner on the Florida Public Service Commission, discusses her strategy for leading NARUC during one of the most dynamic times for utility regulators. She talks about how her power plan concerns as a Florida commissioner are shaping her role as NARUC president and explains why she believes a regional approach would have limited success in her state.Transcript
Monica Trauzzi: Hello and welcome to OnPoint from the NARUC winter meetings in Washington, D.C. I'm Monica Trauzzi. Joining me today is Lisa Edgar, president of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and a commissioner with the Florida Public Service Commission. Commissioner Edgar, thank you for joining me.
Lisa Edgar: Thank you, Monica.
Monica Trauzzi: Commissioner Edgar, EPA's Clean Power Plan proposal is a major point of discussion here at the winter meetings this week. What are the primary reliability and rate concerns you're hearing from regulators?
Lisa Edgar: Our regulators as you know are a very diverse group and have strong opinions on all pieces, all parts, all angles, but two areas that are as you mentioned of particular concern to many state utility regulators includes affordability, potential cost impacts and of course the potential impacts on reliability. As you well know, for the grid, for the electricity to be stable, to be affordable, is so important for all of our economies, for our public health, for public welfare, public safety, and we do want to make sure that we do all we can to make sure that that service is reliable.
Monica Trauzzi: How much of an exchange of ideas do you see happening between regulators who are for the rule and regulators who have strong concerns about it?
Lisa Edgar: Oh, I would say we have a great exchange that goes on, lots and lots of conversations. Occasionally they even become a little heated, sometimes a little emotional. People are very passionate on all sides of this issue, and I'm very pleased with the agenda that we've had and the role that NARUC has to encourage diverse and vibrant discussions.
Monica Trauzzi: And you have become president of NARUC at arguably one of the most significant and dynamic times for regulators. What's your strategy for guiding the process?
Lisa Edgar: Well I do believe that change is all around us in many areas with the grid, with distributing generation, with of course federal rules, federal requirements, some would say federal mandates, that to have the diversity of opinion and the robust discussions is something that makes it all so exciting for me and why I'm so pleased to be in this role right now.
Monica Trauzzi: And how do your views as a Florida commissioner color your work as president of NARUC?
Lisa Edgar: Well I often say that I'm wearing three hats right now, certainly as a Florida commissioner, which is my day job and something I'm very proud of and my responsibility as one of five commissioners from Florida to weigh all of the issues and try to reach consensus on what's best for our ratepayers in our state, and then also this year to serve as president of NARUC and try to help this organization as we move forward with the discussions. And then I guess my third hat in addition of course to wife and mother would be a utility regulator that's been around the block once or twice and has seen some of the discussions change and evolve, and I try to bring each of those hats to the meetings that I have the opportunity to participate in.
Monica Trauzzi: So Florida has been assigned an emissions reduction rate of 38 percent by 2030. Your commission has concerns with the power plan. What will Florida's compliance plan look like?
Lisa Edgar: Well that's one of those unknowns. That's one of the uncertainties that we're facing. Florida did put in comments. I was very pleased that our commission was able to reach consensus on behalf of us as an independent regulatory agency. Also from Florida our sister agency the Florida Department of Environmental Protection contributed comments as did I believe our state attorney general, Office of Public Council, and also our State Energy Office, which is in a separate state agency.
Again coming back to your question, the uncertainties of an implementation plan is one of the things that we're struggling with. As you know it's kind of a chicken and the egg. What is the ultimate final rule going to look like? How do we get ready to put together an implementation plan? And then of course, what will the cost be?
Monica Trauzzi: And what are you doing right now to start to get ready for that final rule?
Lisa Edgar: Well of course the implementation plan will be written by our Florida Department of Environmental Protection. One of the things that we have done is to have more both formal and informal discussions with the experts over in that agency who work with the Clean Air Act and with EPA on a regular basis. They've been educating us. We've been working with them to talk more about those reliability issues and also how the cost allocation works in the ratemaking process, which is not something that they as environmental regulators generally work with.
Monica Trauzzi: Could linking into a regional plan be a successful option for Florida?
Lisa Edgar: I think that that is very much an option for states in some regions. I'm not sure that that's the right path forward for Florida at this point in time. Some of that is of course just based on our geography being down there as a peninsular state that is not tied into the grid with the other states around us as much as some other states or some other regions are.
Monica Trauzzi: But is that something that you would be interested, are you having discussions about it?
Lisa Edgar: There have been some discussions perhaps in the Panhandle area, because of course our Panhandle area is generally served by Gulf Power being part of the Southern network and then the other utilities in Alabama, Georgia, right around that area, that potentially could be more of an option for that portion of our state, but of course that's one of those issues that we're all still trying to understand. Can you have a plan that wraps in part of a state but a different plan for other parts of the state?
Monica Trauzzi: FERC is holding its D.C. technical conference this week on the Clean Power Plan. How involved do you believe FERC should be in the implementation of EPA's plan?
Lisa Edgar: I think it's very important that FERC engage at the federal level. Of course they have responsibility for reliability, which is not the responsibility of EPA. So for FERC with their expertise I think it's absolutely critical that they're involved in the discussions, helping again to bring information in and to educate others.
Monica Trauzzi: One of the topics of discussion here also is the surge in natural gas production and some of the challenges to integrating natural gas and electricity systems. How is the use of natural gas helping Florida meet its energy demands and how is system integration affecting your state?
Lisa Edgar: Certainly Florida is becoming more and more dependent on natural gas as part of our generation portfolio. Natural gas of course can sometimes be easier to site a new generation facility and of course is lower in carbon emissions. So the increase of natural gas is in many ways a good thing especially now that those natural gas prices have stabilized and are lower than they were just a few years ago. But yet I as one regulator do have concerns about the minimalization of the diversity of our fuel portfolio as we begin to depend more and more on natural gas.
Monica Trauzzi: All right. We'll end it there. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it.
Lisa Edgar: Thank you so much.
Monica Trauzzi: And thanks for watching. We'll see you back here tomorrow.
[End of Audio]
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EPA Urged to Withdraw Ozone Proposal Based on New Asthma Study
Feb 18, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Amanda Peterka
An industry group yesterday called on U.S. EPA to withdraw its proposal to tighten the ozone standard, pointing to a recent study that ties the prevalence of asthma to race and poverty.
The Institute for Energy Research says the study published online in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology last month "undermines" EPA's finding that a tighter ozone standard would reduce the number of asthma-related health problems. The group also argues that by "making people poorer," EPA's proposed new ozone standard could make asthma worse.
"In light of this new evidence, EPA should rescind its proposed ozone rule," IER said. "This rule could exacerbate the public health problem it is trying to mitigate and impose enormous economic burdens on American families. Moreover, ozone levels are already declining without further regulation, obviating the need for more federal mandates."
EPA has proposed tightening the ozone standard of 75 parts per billion -- set in 2008 during the George W. Bush administration -- to between 65 and 70 ppb, although the agency is currently accepting comments on whether it should set the limit as low as 60 ppb.
When proposing the new range, EPA said that the science was clear that a lower standard is needed to comply with the Clean Air Act, which stipulates that the agency set national ambient air quality standards at a level that provides the public with an adequate margin of public health protection.
Numerous studies have linked ozone pollution to reduced lung function, premature death and other negative health effects. People with asthma have been found to be especially susceptible to exposure.
EPA says reducing ozone pollution to between 65 and 70 ppb would prevent between 750 and 4,300 premature deaths, between 1,400 and 4,300 asthma-related emergency room visits, and between 320,000 and 960,000 asthma attacks in children yearly by 2025 (Greenwire, Nov. 26, 2014).
"Proposing, and then finalizing, an air quality standard involves evaluating the latest available science, and we have more than 1,000 new studies since the last review that we've taken into account," EPA spokeswoman Liz Purchia said in an emailed statement. "Based on the administrator's evaluation of the latest research, she believes that a standard in the proposed range will provide substantial public health benefits for millions of Americans by reducing both ozone and particle pollution."
The Institute for Energy Research, which promotes "free-market energy and environmental policy," says the new study calls into question those conclusions by the agency.
The study of 23,065 children found that race and income were risk factors for asthma, regardless of whether a child lived in an urban area with high levels of ozone pollution. Indoor air pollution was found to be a higher risk factor for asthma.
"Although the prevalence of asthma is high in some U.S. inner cities, it is equally high in some poor nonurban areas," the study found. "Taking the United States as a whole, living in an urban neighborhood is not associated with increased asthma prevalence."
The study was conducted by researchers from Johns Hopkins University and supported by EPA, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the National Cancer Institute.
Industry groups have for months argued that science isn't clear that a tighter standard is needed to comply with the Clean Air Act. They also argue that a new standard would result in high compliance costs because of the need to install new pollution controls at industrial facilities, as well as stymie economic development in areas deemed to be out of compliance with a tighter standard.
IER warned, on the basis of the new study's results, that EPA is poised to increase risks for asthma if it tightens the standard because doing so would "exacerbate" poverty.
"If poverty contributes more to asthma than ozone, EPA's proposal, which could put millions of Americans out of work and slow economic growth, could actually increase asthma prevalence," the group said yesterday.
EPA has said that the health benefits of a new standard would outweigh costs by a 3-1 margin.
Purchia said Administrator Gina McCarthy would consider factors such as the nature and severity of health effects, the size of at-risk groups that would be affected, and the degree of uncertainty in the science when making a final decision on where to set the standard.
"The law requires the administrator to select a standard that to reduce risk sufficiently to protect public health with an 'adequate margin of safety,' including the health of at-risk groups," Purchia said. "The administrator's task is to set standards that are 'requisite' -- neither more nor less stringent than necessary -- to accomplish this."
Environmental and public health advocates say that the science is clear that ground-level ozone causes adverse health effects. They've called on EPA to set the standard at no higher than 60 ppb.
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Court Rejects Ohio City's Attempt to Block Fracking
Feb 18, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Ohio's highest court yesterday rejected a city's attempt to restrict oil and gas drilling within its borders -- joining the ranks of several states that have faced the question of whether "local control" by municipalities can coexist with state-level regulation.
The Akron suburb of Munroe Falls moved to block development in 2011 after Ohio-based Beck Energy Corp. obtained state permits and began drilling without also seeking city permits. Beck Energy sued the city, and the Ohio Supreme Court heard arguments last February.
The case has attracted intense interest from industry, business groups, municipalities, environmentalists and state regulators -- with more than 30 amicus briefs supporting Munroe Falls and 19 supporting Beck Energy.
Industry and its supporters argue that state law gives the Department of Natural Resources sole authority over "permitting, location, and spacing of oil and gas wells." Munroe Falls attorneys, in turn, contend that the Ohio Constitution's Home Rule Amendment grants municipalities power to enforce certain unique regulations.
The court's decision was a close victory for industry, with four of the seven justices rejecting Munroe Falls' argument that its local ordinances regulated community zoning issues while state law applied only to more technical issues.
"This distinction is fanciful, and it ignores the plain text of the ordinances, as well as the statute," Justice Judith French wrote in the plurality opinion. "The ordinances and [state law] unambiguously regulate the same subject matter -- oil and gas drilling -- and they conflict in doing so."
The opinion also noted that DNR's permit for Beck Energy included 67 conditions to address construction, waste disposal, noise mitigation, and several other environmental and nuisance issues that can accompany oil and gas development.
But the justices were far from general agreement on the issues. The fourth and deciding vote against Munroe Falls came from a justice who concurred with the result only, not the analysis, and wrote a separate opinion to emphasize that the decision applies only to Munroe Falls' ordinances and does not prevent other cities from enacting traditional zoning laws that could affect oil and gas development.
The three dissenting justices, meanwhile, issued scathing opinions finding that the local ordinances at issue were within the city's authority. Justice William O'Neill further suggested that the majority was influenced by political pressure from the oil and gas industry.
"What the drilling industry has bought and paid for in campaign contributions they shall receive," he wrote. "The oil and gas industry has gotten its way, and local control of drilling-location decisions has been unceremoniously taken away from the citizens of Ohio."Questions remain
The Ohio court's ruling is the latest in a string of high-profile decisions on whether and to what extent local governments can regulate development -- an issue that has become increasingly controversial as hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling bring production closer to densely populated areas.
In Colorado and New Mexico, courts have found local fracking bans to be in conflict with state law, while judges in Pennsylvania and New York have preserved some level of municipal control.
The decision in Munroe Falls does not quite fit either mold. Ohio Environmental Council attorney Trent Dougherty noted that the decision does not address whether towns can use zoning power to restrict drilling; it only overturns the city's specific ordinances, which included a unique local permitting process.
"There's still a question of whether the zoning issue is decided here," said Dougherty, who represented several amicus groups in the case. "It's not what you want to have out of a Supreme Court decision, but unfortunately that's sometimes what you get: more questions than answers."
Attorneys for both sides did not respond to requests for comment yesterday, but Beck Energy attorney John Keller told EnergyWire last year he was doubtful the court would let local governments use zoning to control drilling.
"I think it'd be hard to find that the state statute does not prevent the use of zoning as it applies to the location of wells," he said (EnergyWire, July 7).
Outside the courtroom, new concerns have arisen. Dougherty said many Munroe Falls supporters worry the decision could prompt the Ohio General Assembly to draft new legislation closing the window for local zoning.
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Trains are Carrying — and Spilling — A Record Amount of Oil
Feb 17, 2015 | The Washington Post
By Joby Warrick
When 14 tanker cars derailed and exploded Monday near tiny Mount Carbon, W.V., neighbors likened the fireball to a scene from the apocalypse. It was “like something Biblical, or wrath-of-God type stuff,”one resident said.
In fact, the oil spill and fire on the banks of the Kanawha River was the latest occurrence of a type of accident that U.S. officials say is becoming distressingly common. Federal agencies are documenting a dramatic rise in the number of rail mishaps involving oil tankers in the last three years, as North American producers scramble to find ways to transport surging oil output to markets.
The fiery explosion of oil-laden CSX tanker cars along a snowy stretch of south-central West Virginia came just two days after a similar incident in eastern Ontario, and follows a year that shattered all previous records for rail accidents involving shipments of petroleum products.
This photo shows the sequence of an explosion erupting after a train derailment on Feb. 16, 2015. A CSX Corp train hauling North Dakota crude derailed in Mount Carbon, West Virginia. The incident set a number of cars ablaze, destroyed a house, dumped oil in rivers like the Kanawha River and forced the evacuation of two towns in the second significant oil-train incident in three days. (Reuters/Steve Keenan)More than 141 “unintentional releases” were reported from railroad tankers in 2014, an all-time high and a nearly six-fold increase over the average of 25 spills per year during the period from 1975 to 2012, according to records of the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. The year 2013 had fewer accidents but a much larger volume of spilled crude: 1.4 million gallons, an amount that exceeded the total for all spills since record-keeping began in 1975.
The increase adds yet another dimension to the controversy overthe construction of oil pipelines such as the Keystone XL. Oil industry advocates contend that pipelines are safer than rail for moving flammable petroleum, while opponents say pipelines tend to experience much larger spills. The latest spill also highlights well-documented shortcomings in the local preparedness for accidents involving hazardous rail cargo, safety experts say.
“Back-to-back fiery derailments involving crude oil trains should be an unmistakable wake-up call to our political leaders,” said Mollie Matteson, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, an Arizona-based environmental group.
The toll from the latest disaster is far from clear. West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin declared a state of emergency in two West Virginia counties as firefighters and hazmat crews worked for a second day to control the fire and contain an oil spill that contaminated a small creek and threatened to spread to the Kanawha River, a source of drinking water for cities and towns downstream. Nearly 2,500 people were evacuated when portions of the 109-car train derailed and then caught fire in a rural area southeast of Charleston.
Only one injury was reported, but a nearby house was destroyed as one tanker after another exploded, creating columns of smoke and flame that could be seen for miles. A CSX spokesman had no immediate explanation for the accident but confirmed that leaking oil had already reached one of Kanawha’s tributaries.
“Fires around some of the cars will be allowed to burn out,” the company said in a statement.
Transportation experts have long complained about inadequate oversight and gaps in local preparedness for such accidents. Earlier this month, the Obama administration began a review of proposed new rules for oil-hauling trains, including provisions that would mandate updated tanker designs for freight trains hauling flammable cargo. But on Tuesday, CSX officials disclosed that the tankers that caught fire in West Virginia bore the latest design features, raising doubts over whether the new rules would have helped.
Part of the problem, energy experts say, is that transportation has not yet caught up with the sheer volume of oil being pumped by U.S. and Canadian companies in the past three years. In 2012, trains carried 40 times more oil than they did in 2008, and the volume doubled again in the following year, to nearly 800,000 tanker-car loads, according to figures posted by the Association of American Railroads. In production areas where pipelines are unavailable or at capacity, rail has become the transit choice by default, Charles Esser, an analyst with the International Energy Association, wrote in a recent blog.
“North American rail shipments of oil are by no means unprecedented, but until the recent surge in production, they were largely limited to stopgap, temporary use, with pipeline construction favored,” Esser wrote. While overall only about 10 percent of U.S. crude moves by tanker car, nearly 70 percent of the production from North Dakota’s surging Bakken fields reaches refineries by rail, he said.
“Not surprisingly, accidents have increased, as well,” Esser said. The petroleum that spilled in West Virginia on Monday originated in North Dakota and was headed for an oil terminal in Yorktown, Va.
As accidents mount, so do chances for major disasters that could pollute communities and the environment, Matteson said. She cited the July 2013 derailment in Quebec that killed 47 people and forced the evacuation of 2,000 people.
“People’s lives are at stake, clean drinking water is at stake, and the well-being of towns and wildlife along thousands of miles of rail line are directly in harm’s way of this unchecked, reckless increase in oil transport by rail,” she said.
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Oil Train Fire Rekindles Push for Tanker Rules
Feb 18, 2015 | The Hill - Transportation
By Timothy Cama
The derailment and explosion of a train carrying more than 100 tank cars full of crude oil in West Virginia is sparking fresh calls for stronger rules to counter increased safety and health risks posed by the fast-expanding industry.
The incident in rural Fayette County was the latest in a rapidly growing number of leaks, fires and other accidents involving the increasing volume of oil transported from North Dakota’s Bakken formation, and comes as the White House Office of Management and Budget is reviewing a suite of draft regulations from the Transportation Department aimed at improving the safety of trains carrying crude.
“The West Virginia disaster, just like all these crude-by-rail disasters we’ve seen in recent years ... makes these federal safety rules even more urgent,” said Devorah Ancel, an attorney with the Sierra Club.
U.S. railroads shipped 415,000 carloads of oil last year, a sharp increase over the 10,000 shipped in 2008, according to the Transportation Department. That’s due mainly to the rise in unconventional drilling techniques like hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, which have made the United States the top oil producer in the world.
Meanwhile, major crude-by-rail incidents have risen as well, hitting 118 nationally last year, up from just one in 2009.
After incidents like a massive explosion in Quebec, Canada, that killed 47 in 2013, and a derailment and spill in Virginia in 2014, environmentalists say it’s beyond time for the Obama administration to act.
But Ancel said the National Transportation Safety Board sounded the alarm about tank cars under the DOT-111 standard as early as 1991.
DOT-111 is the decades-old regulatory standard that the oil industry and railroads have been operating under in North America.
“This action is long overdue,” Ancel said.
While recognizing that the administration is taking action, Matt Krogh, the oil campaign director for ForestEthics, also lamented the pace of action.
“The political process seems to be moving remarkably slowly, with the railroads, tank car industry and petroleum producers fighting over who has to pay for obvious — and necessary — safety upgrades,” Krogh said.
The rules were proposed last July and are on track to be made final in May.
The new standards are likely to include thicker shells for oil tankers, enhanced braking capabilities, new speed limits or some combination of those chages.
Older tank cars that don’t fit the standards and aren’t retrofitted would have to be phased out within seven years, a timeline that both oil and rail interests said would be too quick and too expensive.
“The tank car rule is a top priority for this department,” Suzanne Emmerling, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Department, said in a statement. “We have been fully engaged and will continue to place our full attention on getting a final rule in place as quickly as possible and ensure it is done right. Yesterday’s derailment serves as yet another reminder of the urgency of the issue at hand.”
The oil and rail industries say their operations are safe, and stress that 99.998 percent of hazardous rail shipments happen without incident.
“Even one incident is too many, so we are working with regulators and the railroads to enhance safety through a comprehensive approach to accident prevention, mitigation and response,” Brian Straessle, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute (API), said in a statement.
API’s position is that tank car design can only go so far, and improvements also need to happen in incident response and prevention.
In Monday’s derailment, roughly 25 cars of the CSX Corp. train left the tracks and 20 caught fire in a series of explosions next to the Kanawha River, though no cars entered the river itself, the company said. No one died in the incident; two nearby towns were evacuated and municipal water supplies were stopped.
The accident set West Virginia’s congressional delegation into motion. Sen. Joe Manchin (D) and Rep. Evan Jenkins (R) went to Mount Carbon to help monitor evacuations and water supplies, while the offices of Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R) and Rep. Alex Mooney (R) conducted outreach efforts for residents, responders and officials.
Mooney said he’s open to hearing recommendations about how rail safety could be improved. But he also said increased use of pipelines, like the proposed Keystone XL, would help reduce dependence on rail transportation, which is less safe.
“It is unfortunate the president continues to use executive action to obstruct projects like the Keystone XL pipeline, which would lighten the burden on our railway and highway systems,” he said in a statement. “I will continue to fight for a fair and transparent permitting process for pipeline projects.”
Manchin also said he’s open to improving safety, though he didn’t endorse any specifics.
The Transportation Department has sent at least half a dozen investigators to the scene of the accident, and is expected to send more. The National Transportation Safety board has not said whether it will investigate.
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New Oil Train Blast Stokes Call for Safety Rules
Feb 18, 2015 | Politico
By Kathryn A. Wolfe
The spectacular explosion of an oil train in West Virginia has underscored frustration over delays in implementing more forceful safety regulations for crude-carrying trains, many of which rumble through communities’ downtowns.
The crash on Monday, involving a 109-car convoy of CSX tankers carrying crude oil extracted from North Dakota’s Bakken shale fields to a depot in Yorktown, Virginia, sent fireballs into the frigid air, destroyed a house, forced the evacuation of some 1,000 residents from nearby towns and may have fouled the nearby Kanawha river. It also occurred about nine months after the Department of Transportation proposed mandatory rules to toughen safety standards for oil trains — and a month after DOT missed Congress’ Jan. 15 deadline for finishing them.
DOT’s current plan is to issue the rule in May. In the meantime, the practice of using trains to ferry Bakken oil across the country has grown at breakneck pace, bringing along with it a flurry of derailments, spills and fires in the past two years. Property damage from oil train incidents totaled more than $7 million per year in 2013 and 2014 — tenfold the level from just six years ago.
“As our nation experiences a significant rise in domestic energy production, we must set a new standard for the safe transportation of those products,” Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx said Tuesday. “The Department of Transportation and the Administration have been working diligently to get that system in place and to get it done right.”
Some 28 tank cars were involved in Monday’s derailment, and 20 caught fire, though how many breached is still unclear. However, all of the cars in the load were built to a newer, stronger design, raising fresh questions about whether even the improved cars the industry has begun to use are adequate to the task.
“This accident is another reminder of the need to improve the safety of transporting hazardous materials by rail,” said NTSB Acting Chairman Christopher A. Hart. Improving oil train safety was included in the NTSB’s “Most Wanted” safety improvements list this year for the first time.
Todd Paglia, the executive director of ForestEthics, an environmental advocacy group, urged the administration to “take a close events of the weekend” as it develops its rule.
“No tank car is safe to carry this dangerous cargo,” Paglia said. “Oil trains are simply too dangerous for the rails.”
DOT’s pending rule calls for a combination of more stringent operational controls on crude trains, such as speed limits and improved brakes, along with stronger tank car design standards — but competing industries want solutions that diverge sharply in some spots, making it a difficult needle to thread.
Some lawmakers are renewing calls for the Transportation Department to do more, faster.
Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), said though the explosion happened far from New York, thousands of communities are endangered when “highly explosive crude travels in inadequate tanker cars. Thankfully there are no reported injuries, but these derailments have lasting environmental and economic consequences. If we’re serious about safety, we needed these critical commonsense technology improvements yesterday.”
Congressional consternation with the delayed rule is nothing new. A provision included in a bill to keep the government functioning enacted late last year set a statutory deadline of Jan. 15 for issuing the rule. No one believed the agency would meet the deadline, but it sent a strong signal about lawmakers’ frustration with foot-dragging. Just before the President’s Day recess, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) blasted the agency for taking so long in issuing the rule, and called on regulators to take “immediate action.”
“Here we are almost 15 months later, and we still do not have a final rule. Frankly, I am concerned that opposition to the more contentious portions of the rule will only lead to further delays, possibly even litigation. That will end up postponing implementation of a final rule while the concerns of states and local communities are growing,” DeFazio wrote in a letter to DOT Secretary Anthony Foxx.
The current standard tank car — called a DOT-111 — relies on designs from the 1960s that safety regulators charge just isn’t sturdy enough to transport crude from North Dakota’s Bakken region, which the government asserts is more flammable than other types of crude. But the West Virginia derailment, along with a derailment last year in Lynchburg, Va., both involved a newer, stronger model of tank car.
The railroad industry largely supports transitioning to a more robust design — known as the CPC-1232 — and has moved faster than the agency that is supposed to establish the standard. The energy industry takes a different view, saying derailments are the real culprit and that more attention needs to be paid to track maintenance.
The investigation is still in its early stages and the cause of the derailment isn’t likely to be known for weeks if not months or longer. But it shares some similarities with another fiery derailment on April 30 in Lynchburg, Va. last year. According to federal data, the Lynchburg derailment was the last major oil train incident prior to this weekend’s, where a CSX car — also bound for a Virginia oil depot — derailed as it rounded a bend in the James River, breaching one car, igniting three and sending flaming crude into the water.
The April Lynchburg accident caused some $2.28 million in damage, according to an incident database kept by the Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Administration. The next most serious incident between then and now was a derailment in May involving a Union Pacific train that caused just under $300,000 in damage.
Though the rule has been delayed, the DOT points to steps it has taken to beef up the safety of crude oil transported by rail, including May emergency order requiring that railroads running convoys with more than 1 million gallons of Bakken crude must share information with communities along their routes. That includes estimated volumes of Bakken crude, the frequency of the train traffic and the route the train will travel. Railroads are also required to provide contact information for at least one responsible party.
Also in May, the agency also issued a “safety advisory” asking — but not requiring — shippers of Bakken crude to discontinue using the older DOT-111 models of railroad tank cars commonly used and instead use newer CPC-1232 cars.
Lawmakers welcomed both actions, but at the same time openly questioned why the DOT wasn’t using more of its authority to take immediate steps. The criticism was all the more pointed because just weeks earlier, the government of Canada had announced a series of mandates including the phase-out or retrofitting of DOT-111 tank cars in the next three years, as well as speed reductions for trains carrying hazardous goods and requirements for railroads to create emergency response plans.
“When can we expect the U.S. DOT to raise the bar, to up the ante?” asked NTSB Board Member Robert Sumwalt, during a safety forum around the time Canada acted. “Right now in three years, those communities that live alongside railroad tracks that are transporting crude oil in Canada, those communities will ostensibly have a higher level of safety than will those communities here in the U.S. So when is the DOT going to step up to the plate?”
Magdy El-Sibaie, an official at PHMSA, responded that the agency is “extremely concerned” about the problem. “We haven’t been sitting at the department waiting to act, literally waiting for rules to come out.”
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Oil Train Derailments are on NTSB 'Most Wanted'
Feb 18, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Morning Energy
By Darius Dixon
National Transportation Safety Board investigators have started to dive into the oil train derailment that triggered a massive blaze in West Virginia on Monday and sent at least one rail car into the Kanawha River. “This accident is another reminder of the need to improve the safety of transporting hazardous materials by rail,” Acting NTSB Chairman Christopher Hart said in a statement. “That is why this issue is included on our Most Wanted List.” Investigators plan to compare the accident with tank car design specifications and similar derailments including ones in Casselton, N.D., and Lynchburg, Va. According to the NTSB, some of the derailed tank cars in Monday’s accident have released crude oil onto the ground, which immediately ignited. And since some of the oil likely entered the Kanawha River, downstream water treatment intakes were closed as a precaution.
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Damaged Rail Cars Enjoy Lenient Rules as Oil Train Explosions Plague Small Towns
Feb 18, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
Rail cars hauling crude oil have had a bumpy ride over the past few years.
From Quebec to Virginia, the extreme forces of crude-laden tank car collisions in recent years have split steel like an orange rind. On Monday, another milelong CSX Corp. oil train derailed and caught fire near Montgomery, W.Va., destroying a home and forcing hundreds of people to evacuate.
But more often than not, damaged rail cars don't cause a disaster. And sometimes those damaged cars are attached to the end of another long oil train heading in the same direction.
To get cars to the repair shop, shippers plug leaks and seek a special "one-time movement approval" from the Federal Railroad Administration. In other words, they keep moving a damaged oil tank car on the tracks toward its destination. The agency rarely rejects a one-time movement request, according to records.
Instead, the agency will "work with the requestor to ensure the information provided is complete and accurate and that appropriate safety measures are taken prior to moving the cars."
The result? No damaged cars approved for one-time movement leaked any hazardous materials or caused any injuries last year, according to FRA.
While that safety record keeps the agency out of the cross hairs of members of Congress or angry local officials, questions are being raised about the a policy that allows cars with significant damage to travel on tracks that pass through hundreds of small American towns. Some of those cars still contain crude oil and other hazardous materials.Flush with oil
Train crews spotted the first leak on the border of Idaho and Washington last month.
Oil had stained the side of one of 97 tank cars hauling crude from the Bakken Shale play in North Dakota. BNSF Railway Co. employees took the car out of service on Jan. 11 as the rest of the train rumbled past tiny Hauser, Idaho -- a pit stop in the "virtual pipeline" linking oil-rich North Dakota to West Coast refineries via rail.
By the time the train reached Vancouver, Wash., the next day, six more cars had sprung leaks and were pulled aside. On Jan. 13, yet another seven cars were found to have spilled crude in Auburn, Wash., about 100 miles south of the train's final destination, a refinery in Anacortes run by Tesoro Corp.
In all, a few dozen gallons of crude had slopped over the tops and edges of the 14 cars, but no oil ever reached the ground, according to BNSF.
The damaged cars weren't stopped for long. After rail workers plugged the leaky valves and cleaned the outside of the 14 tankers, they hit the tracks again, still full of crude and as yet unrepaired.
The oil-laden cars were cleared to move under an obscure but growing popular exemption to federal hazardous materials rules: the One-Time Movement Approval (OTMA).
Permit in hand, shippers such as Tesoro Corp. can legally move cracked, dented or overweight tank cars to their end destinations before getting repairs.
"One-time movement, that is something that we're very interested in because in those cases, we're dealing with something where there's already been a problem," said Jason Lewis, transportation policy adviser for the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission, which is investigating last month's series of spills en route to Tesoro's refinery.
But with only one rail hazardous materials inspector, and four inspectors total for all aspects of rail safety in the state, Lewis said his department is limited in how it approaches OTMAs.
"We would like the ability to have inspectors there to make sure that everything that's being done is in the public interest, for public safety," he said.
The popularity of "one-time" approvals for DOT-111s -- the kind of aging tank cars often used to ship crude oil -- mirrors the rise in crude-by-rail shipments, which were practically nonexistent in 2007 but were on track to hit 500,000 tank carloads in 2014, based on preliminary industry data.
Crude-by-rail's sudden rise has exposed gaps in Department of Transportation oversight in the past.
Loose wording in DOT's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) guidelines allowed railroads to move millions of gallons of oil without preparing a comprehensive emergency spill response plan (EnergyWire, April 22, 2014).
PHMSA is working to close that loophole and has separately sent a sweeping oil-by-rail safety rule to the White House for review (EnergyWire, Feb. 6).
Regulators have hinted at gaps in their oversight of one-time approvals to move cargo, as fuel logistics firms such as USD Group and Musket Corp. increasingly turn to the once-obscure approval process.
In a 2011 agency meeting, William Schoonover, staff director of FRA's hazardous materials division, reassured his colleagues that the one-time movement permitting program "has been in place for more than 15 years now without an injury, fatality or release of hazardous materials for shipments moving under an approval."
FRA officials say approvals give regulators a way to gather important data on hazardous material safety practices.
Still, the number of requests -- and corresponding approvals -- has steadily increased. In 2007, the agency issued 380 approvals for all types of rail cars no longer conforming to federal rules. Four years later, FRA was handling more than 1,000 requests per year. By 2013, FRA issued 564 one-time movement approvals for crude-laden cars alone.
FRA updated its program in 2012 to cut down on the deluge of applications. The reforms established a "standing approval" for certain minor flaws. That means in most cases, shippers don't have to wait for a written nod from FRA to move tank cars with defective safety valves, dented metal, leaky heating coils (for heavy crude) or bad bottom outlet valves.
Railroad officials flagged concerns about overweight cars in their draft crude-by-rail rule last summer. They noted that the nature of the fuel logistics business -- in which "key" trains of 80 cars or more rush from North Dakota to East Coast refineries without so much as stopping for classification at a rail yard -- may prevent regulators from tracking tank cars considered too heavy to be safe.
An FRA official said the agency aims to boost reporting of overweight rail cars through "outreach and education." The official noted that an overweight tank car hasn't necessarily been filled with too much crude by volume. That's because scales calculate the gross weight of the tank car and its contents -- not the weight of the crude alone.
"Be advised, it is the shipper's responsibility to ensure the car is not overloaded by volume and the car complies with [federal hazardous materials regulations]," warned FRA safety specialist Erich Rudolph in a one-time movement approval granted to an undisclosed crude oil shipper on April 29, 2014.
The car in question was 3,900 pounds overweight and had been cleared to move roughly 340 miles from Chattanooga, Tenn., to the Hunt Southland refinery in Rogerslacy, Miss., records show.
The next day, a CSX Corp. train hauling oil derailed and caught fire in Lynchburg, Va., hurting no one but leaking crude into the James River. That train did not include the weighty tank car approved the previous day for a ride on Norfolk Southern Railway.'Some manner of defect'
Regulators have pushed for clearer markers on cars moving under one-time approvals in case an accident upsets the process's pristine record.
"The FRA believes that better identification of rail cars moving under One-Time Movement Approvals (OTMAs) listed on the train consist would provide further benefit to emergency responders as these cars generally have some manner of defect," PHMSA Administrator Cynthia Quarterman noted in a July 16, 2013, letter to experts at the National Transportation Safety Board. Quarterman has since left PHMSA.
NTSB spokesman Eric Weiss said the safety watchdog's hazmat inspectors "have not come across [OTMA] as a problem."
"Of course, we check the filling history of cars involved in accidents, and we would have noted if they were overfilled or used an OTMA," he added.
Large-scale crude-by-rail shipments were thought to be a temporary business when they began in the late 2000s with the onset of the shale drilling boom. Many analysts figured that pipelines would quickly replace their rolling counterparts in expanding oil patches such as North Dakota's Bakken Shale formation.
Even as more pipeline capacity arrived, rail shipments still accounted for 59 percent of crude oil leaving North Dakota in November, the most recent data available.
The industry's continued reliance on decades-old, puncture-prone "beer can" DOT-111 tank cars hasn't sat well with safety advocates and environmentalists.
"There is clearly an imminent hazard posed by these unit trains and DOT-111 tank cars, yet the DOT has dragged its feet on the one thing it could do to protect public health and safety, which is to ban DOT-111 cars immediately," said Devorah Ancel, an attorney with the Sierra Club.
The DOT has stopped short of ordering a ban on DOT-111s but has recommended avoiding them "to the extent reasonably practicable" (EnergyWire, May 8).
That May 7 safety advisory served as another reminder to crude-by-rail players: Meeting but not exceeding DOT standards may not be enough to earn a safe reputation.
The rail industry has sought to one-up DOT's base-line tank car rules in the past. In 2011, after two decades of warnings from NTSB officials, a deadly ethanol train crash involving DOT-111s drove the industry to adopt a new, voluntary car design in advance of formal rulemaking.
Since then, tens of thousands of tougher CPC-1232 tank cars have hit the tracks, with many refineries and oil traders phasing out their older fleets in an attempt to burnish their safety practices.
The cars that dripped oil across Washington last month were built to this higher standard, according to Tesoro, which no longer includes older DOT-111s in its fleet.
Tesoro, which obtained one-time movement approvals for the 14 tank cars after they were initially sidelined from the leaks, said it had since removed the entire impacted train from service.
"Once these cars arrived at our Anacortes facility they were offloaded, inspected and removed from service," Tesoro spokeswoman Tina Barbee said in an email. "Additionally, we proactively removed the cars in our fleet that were determined to be of the same build group even though the cars were not found leaking or defective. These cars will remain out of service pending maintenance work."
But despite DOT's misgivings and safety warnings dating back to 1991, DOT-111 tank cars are still the default choice for many crude shippers. After all, even lightly dented DOT-111s are automatically considered safe to transport under the one-time movement approval process.
"Our intention here is to not do something that's unsafe, you know," said Robert Fronczak, assistant vice president for environment and hazardous materials for the Association of American Railroads, in a 2011 meeting with federal rail regulators. "I think we're trying to identify things that are clearly fairly minor and, you know, having the ability to move some of these cars to the closest repair locations is probably not such a bad idea."
Several rail worker unions have been more skeptical in comments to the agency on the issue of one-time approvals to move damaged rail cars. Railroads and shippers will pressure the agency to accelerate the approval process, warned the group, which included the United Transportation Union, in its letter. "Such acceleration will undoubtedly diminish the level of detail and due diligence now afforded each request, resulting in an increased probability of unintended consequences such as fire, explosion, or chemical exposure."The show must go on
Why don't railroads in North Dakota's Bakken, such as BNSF Railway Co. and Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd., simply refuse to move a shipper's older, riskier DOT-111s full of crude?
The short answer: It's illegal.
As long as a DOT-111 is properly packaged, common carrier laws leave railroads no choice but to move the tank car to its destination.
But damaged cars moving under one-time approvals aren't covered by common carrier obligations. That gives railroads the option of rejecting a car that has been stamped safe by FRA.
Such refusals are rare, officials say. For instance, a railroad might reject an overweight car approved for one-time movement if the car would have needed to pass over a bridge not rated for the heavier load.
"In spite of the FRA approvals, we still have the option to reject them if we think it is unsafe to move in a unit train," said BNSF spokeswoman Roxanne Butler. "The alternative would be to move it with another means, such as loaded on a flatcar."
There are often few alternatives to moving a damaged tank cars to a repair shop. For one, they're massive. DOT-111 tank cars are more than 50 feet long and weigh over 250,000 pounds when fully loaded.
"Every train goes through a series of inspections as it moves from origin to destination, and if a car has been identified as not being in compliance, it is taken out of service and through the OTMA process eventually transported to a repair facility," said AAR spokesman Ed Greenberg in an emailed statement.Just once -- or twice
Occasionally, one-time approvals play out in two steps: One short movement gets the tank car to where crude can be offloaded, then a second, typically longer-distance approval lets the empty tank car reach the repair shop.
That's what happened to a DOT-111 tank car hauling crude oil through Buffalo, N.Y., last year.
Tidal Energy Marketing Inc. asked regulators to sign off on the two-time movement of a tank car with a "defective/leaking bottom outlet valve."
After traveling 10 miles, the car would be unloaded in Hamburg, south of Buffalo, before embarking on a 1,025-mile journey to a repair shop in Nebraska.
The agency approved its request but warned, "This approval provides no relief from the regulatory requirement that a hazardous material package offered for transportation retain its contents during transportation."
In regulatory-speak, that means, "You'd better not leak." It's small comfort to Jean Dickson, a Buffalo resident who lives feet from train tracks operated by CSX Corp.
She said in a recent interview that she regularly sees crude oil, ethanol and other flammable liquids and chemicals pass by her home.
"What's really worrying is that there's all kinds of horrible stuff going right through where everybody lives," she said.
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