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Eight Key Questions On Chemical Safety Reform
Mar 9, 2015 | Environmental Working Group
By Scott Faber
Chemicals used in everyday products should be safe – right? States should have a role in regulating potentially toxic chemicals – right? -
White House jobs Push Has Cyber Focus
Mar 9, 2015 | The Hill - Cybersecurity
By Cory Bennett
A White House tech jobs training program to be announced Monday will focus on filling the thousands of vacant cybersecurity jobs across the country. -
Week Ahead: Senate to Put Climate Rule Under Microscope
Mar 9, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Laura Barron-Lopez
A Senate committee is planning its third hearing in as many months on the administration’s signature climate change regulation. -
Slower Implementation of EPA Power Plan Would Bring Big Water Savings -- Study
Mar 9, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Annie Snider
Allowing Texas to implement U.S. EPA's plan to lower carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants more slowly would bring a steep cut in the amount of water consumed in the state, according to a new study from nonprofit research group CNA Corp. -
FERC to Hear Eastern Perspective on Power Plan
Mar 9, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
This week, Washington gears up for another Federal Energy Regulatory Commission technical conference on the Clean Power Plan, a visit from the nation's municipal electric utility leaders, a conference of the National League of Cities and a Senate panel discussion featuring state perspectives on the draft rule. -
Public Notice Not Required for Revising Interpretive Rules -- Supreme Court
Mar 9, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Jeremy P. Jacobs
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously today that an agency does not need to post a public notice and solicit comments when it revises one of its interpretive rules. -
High Court Backs Agencies' 'Interpretive' Rule Power But Splits On Deference
Mar 9, 2015 | InsideEPA
By David LaRoss
The Supreme Court in a unanimous ruling is backing EPA's and other agencies' power to amend interpretations of their rules without formal notice and comment, clearing the way for EPA to potentially make sudden changes in policy -- though the justices are split on whether courts should defer to agencies on interpretation of ambiguous rules. -
EPA 'Tier 3' Advocates Say Oil Sector's Fears Over Rule Proven Unfounded
Mar 9, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Stuart Parker
Proponents of EPA's final “Tier 3” fuel air rule say current low gas prices combined with the oil sector's decision not to sue over the rule despite claims it would spur gas price spikes show industry's attacks on the rule were unfounded, echoing what advocates say was a flawed “train wreck” campaign utilities waged against EPA air rules. -
Petroleum Industry, EPA Negotiating Over Methane Leakage Rules
Mar 9, 2015 | E&E - Climatewire
By Gayathri Vaidyanathan
U.S. EPA's efforts to track greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas industry are facing yet another legal challenge in federal court. -
Small Towns and Oil Industry Play Wait and See in Wake of Ohio Drilling Ruling
Mar 9, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer and Mike Lee
Almost three weeks after Ohio's top court struck down a town's restrictive drilling ordinances, lawyers and local officials are predicting another round of court cases to settle how much control local governments have over oil and gas development. -
East Coast Dems Push Against Atlantic Offshore Drilling
Mar 9, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Twelve Senate Democrats from the East Coast asked Obama administration Monday to take Atlantic Ocean offshore drilling off the table. -
Kemp: Oil Train Fires Reveal Problematic Safety Culture
Mar 9, 2015 | Reuters
By John Kemp
Two more serious derailments and fires involving trains carrying crude oil in the past week confirm there is a serious problem with the safety culture on North American railroads. -
Stronger Oil Trains Are Still Rupturing — Energy Journal
Mar 9, 2015 | The Wall Street Journal
By Christopher Harder
New, tougher, railroad tanker cars carrying crude oil across North America amid the shale boom are still rupturing in derailments. -
Oil Train Derails in Canada
Mar 9, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
A train carrying crude oil derailed and caught fire in northern Ontario, Canada, the second derailment in three days for Canadian National Railway Co. -
Oil Train Derailment in Ontario Adds to String of Accidents
Mar 9, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
A Canadian National Railway Co. train hauling crude derailed and caught fire in rural Ontario early Saturday, less than a month after a separate oil train crashed in the same area.
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Eight Key Questions On Chemical Safety Reform
Mar 9, 2015 | Environmental Working Group
By Scott Faber
Chemicals used in everyday products should be safe – right? States should have a role in regulating potentially toxic chemicals – right?
Keep these simple questions in mind as Congress begins to debate reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act (widely called TSCA) – a law so weak that even the chemical industry concedes that it’s broken.
Last fall, Sens. David Vitter (R-La.) and Tom Udall (D-New Mex.) proposedlegislation that would block states from regulating many chemicals, but it wouldn’t give the Environmental Protection Agency the power or the resources to determine whether they’re safe. A new draft of the Vitter-Udall bill is expected any day.
This spring, Congress will return to these basic questions – and many others – as it renews debate over TSCA.
As they do, here are eight questions legislators should be asking:Shouldn’t chemicals be safe? Shouldn’t the chemicals in cleaners and other household products be as safe as those in our food? Last year, the Vitter-Udall bill proposed a “safety” standard that required only that chemical companies show their wares present “no unreasonable risk of harm.” Who’s to decide what’s unreasonable? EPA? The courts? Will the new draft have an unambiguous safety standard that ensures that chemicals are safe?
Are we putting health first? Shouldn’t chemicals that pose a serious risk to health be banned? Last year’s version of the Vitter-Udall bill would require a cost-benefit analysis before EPA could phase out or ban a chemical. Will the new draft allow EPA to ban dangerous chemicals regardless of the cost?
Are we leveling the playing field? In most cases, judges grant substantial deference to the EPA’s decisions, but their actions under TSCA are subject to a tougher “substantial evidence” standard that results in more judicial review. Last year’s Vitter-Udall bill retained the tougher standard. Will the new draft level the playing field for chemical safety reviews?
Are we setting tough deadlines? Shouldn’t we require expedited safety evaluations of asbestos and toxic chemicals that persist in the environment and accumulate in the body? Last year’s Vitter-Udall bill would allow EPA to take seven years to investigate a single chemical – and the bill set no deadlines for implementing new chemical restrictions. Will the new draft have tough deadlines that ensure that chemicals are quickly scrutinized for safety? Will there be deadlines for implementing new rules?
How many chemicals will be investigated? Thousands of chemicals are routinely used in commerce. Shouldn’t EPA quickly evaluate the safety of the most dangerous chemicals right away? Last year’s Vitter-Udall bill required that only 10 chemicals be designated high-priority in the first year. Will the new draft ensure that hundreds of dangerous chemicals are quickly assessed for safety?
Are we preserving a role for the states? For decades, states have been taking action to keep their residents safe from dangerous chemicals. Shouldn’t we ask states to use their know-how to support and supplement EPA? Last year’s Vitter-Udall bill would block any state action on those chemicals that EPA deems “high priority.” Will the new draft preserve a role for the states? Will the new draft allow states to use their state environmental laws to protect public health?
Will industry pay its fair share? The chemical industry reported near-record profits in 2013 and last year spent more than $60 million to lobby Congress, so it can certainly afford to help finance chemical reviews. Last year’s Vitter-Udall bill did not propose to require the industry to share more costs of these investigations. Will the new draft include enough funding to complete needed evaluations of dangerous chemicals?
Will EPA be able to ban asbestos? In 1991, a court ruled that under TSCA the EPA didn’t have the power to ban even asbestos – a substance that kills 10,000 Americans every year and has been banned by 54 countries. Retaining the “unreasonable risk” and “substantial evidence” standards and requiring cost-benefit analyses – as the Vitter-Udall bill proposed last year – could well mean that asbestos would remain legal. Will the new draft allow EPA to quickly ban asbestos?
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White House jobs Push Has Cyber Focus
Mar 9, 2015 | The Hill - Cybersecurity
By Cory Bennett
A White House tech jobs training program to be announced Monday will focus on filling the thousands of vacant cybersecurity jobs across the country.
Companies and government agencies frequently cite a shortage of available cybersecurity hires as a main challenge to defending their networks.
The administration’s initiative, dubbed TechHire, will launch tech education programs in 20 U.S. cities and offer $100 million in federal grants for tech job training for low-skill employees. Several private companies like Microsoft and Cisco are also committing to offer free tech training programs online to low-income individuals.
The White House said Monday that of the five million open jobs in the U.S., more than half a million are tech-related and many of them are cyber-focused.
A jobs review by Vice President Biden “identified information technology generally and cybersecurity in particular as an emerging area of growth that requires job-driven training strategies to meet business needs and provide more workers with a path to the middle class,” the White House said.
Over the last two years, a growing number of high-profile companies have suffered major data breaches. Retailers like Target and Home Depot, banks like JPMorgan and health insurers like Anthem have all been hit, exposing hundreds of millions of customers’ sensitive data.
As a result, companies are scrambling to shore up their cyber defenses.
One study found the demand for cyber professionals is growing three and a half time faster than the demand for other information technology jobs.
Fortune 500 companies are even working to bring cybersecurity experts on to their boards.
High salaries have followed. That same study reported the average cyber worker makes $116,000.
The White House said tech salaries more generally are 50 percent higher than the average private-sector job. And they’re achievable positions.
“IT and cybersecurity jobs are not only for people with advanced degrees,” said a White House website for the TechHire Initiative.
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Week Ahead: Senate to Put Climate Rule Under Microscope
Mar 9, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Laura Barron-Lopez
A Senate committee is planning its third hearing in as many months on the administration’s signature climate change regulation.
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a hearing next week on an Environmental Protection Agency climate regulation that requires states to cut carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030.
State officials from Wisconsin, Wyoming, Indiana, California and New York will testify.
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), who chairs the Environment panel, has vowed to scrutinize the regulation as closely as possible. Inhofe and his fellow Republicans argue the rule will hurt the economy, destroy energy jobs and do little to mitigate the impacts of climate change.
The EPA contends the rule is flexible and will save consumers money on their electric bills once it’s fully implemented.
Tackling climate change is a key pillar of President Obama’s second-term legacy.
Wednesday’s Senate hearing will be far from the last on the subject.
While the House is out next week, there will still be plenty of action on Capitol Hill.
On Monday, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Environmental Protection Agency chief Gina McCarthy will deliver remarks at the National League of Cities’s Congressional Cities Conference.
Later on Monday, Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) will speak at an event on international environmental crime. Madhuri Kommareddi, director of program development for the Office of Hillary Rodham Clinton with the Clinton Foundation, will also attend.
On Tuesday, the Atlantic Council will talk about the future of the power industry. The CEO of Southern Co., Thomas Fanning, will attend.
On Wednesday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will kick off its 2015 conference. Commissioner Jeff Baran will deliver remarks.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Thursday will mark up the Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act of 2015. The legislation aims to protect and advance opportunities for recreational hunting, fishing, and shooting.
Finally, on Thursday, Secretary of State John Kerry will speak at a talk hosted by the Atlantic Council on the Paris climate talks.
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Slower Implementation of EPA Power Plan Would Bring Big Water Savings -- Study
Mar 9, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Annie Snider
Allowing Texas to implement U.S. EPA's plan to lower carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants more slowly would bring a steep cut in the amount of water consumed in the state, according to a new study from nonprofit research group CNA Corp.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, and others have been raising concerns about the steep cut in emissions that the plan currently calls for in the initial years, arguing it could create reliability problems. EPA's proposal assigns Texas a deep interim emissions-reduction target beginning in 2020 that assumes the state can shift a significant share of its generation from coal to combined cycle natural gas by that year (EnergyWire, Nov. 19, 2014).
EPA officials have signaled that they are weighing changes to the interim target in the final rule that will be released this summer.
Paul Faeth, director of the energy, water and climate division at CNA, had previously studied what EPA's Clean Power Plan would mean for water consumption in drought-prone Texas. He decided to take a closer look at what slower implementation would mean for the water side of the equation.
In a new study being released tomorrow, Faeth reports that if EPA kept the interim target for reducing greenhouse gases but lets the state implement the plan more slowly, then Texas would see a steep drop in the amount of water consumed by the power sector.
That's because most of the power supplies with low or no greenhouse gas emissions -- natural gas, solar and wind power -- also consume less water.
Keep up to date on the latest national and state-level developments on EPA's greenhouse gas regulations for the power sector. Go toE&E's Power Plan Hub.
Under the current scenario, Texas would hit its interim greenhouse gas reduction goal by making a swift shift from coal to natural gas combined cycle. If that move happened more slowly, the state would need to ultimately take more coal-fired power offline in order to hit the interim goal. And that steeper turn away from coal would also mean steeper reductions in water consumption.
"Every pound that you delay at the beginning has to be made up at the end in order to hit the average," Faeth said. "You're delaying, so you get water savings later, but they're deeper."
Specifically, Faeth found that allowing a slower rate of implementation would mean a 35 percent cut in water consumption compared with 2012, as opposed to a 20 percent cut under EPA's current scenario.
The savings only hold true if the interim target is kept, though. With only a final target, the water savings would be significantly less than the current EPA scenario, the study found.
Faeth is in Austin, Texas, this week briefing state lawmakers and other officials, as well as the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation, which funded the study, on its findings.
While Texas lawmakers have been hostile toward the Obama administration's climate plan, Faeth said that its water implications are grabbing attention.
Texas has had four straight years of drought. Low water flows and high water temperatures have caused problems for water-dependent coal and nuclear plants. During the height of the drought in 2011, ERCOT wrote to warn of possible black-outs as water levels dipped below plants' intake pipes.
"There's definitely a lot more interest in hearing about the water side of things," Faeth said. "There's a lot of interest in things that can save them water because they recognize that there's a big problem there."
Reporter Jean Chemnick contributed.
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FERC to Hear Eastern Perspective on Power Plan
Mar 9, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
This week, Washington gears up for another Federal Energy Regulatory Commission technical conference on the Clean Power Plan, a visit from the nation's municipal electric utility leaders, a conference of the National League of Cities and a Senate panel discussion featuring state perspectives on the draft rule.
New briefs were filed last week in a challenge to the proposed rule brought by West Virginia and 11 other states. See them at the bottom of our Legal Challenges page.
Go to E&E's Power Plan Hub for the latest news, state summaries and developments.
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Public Notice Not Required for Revising Interpretive Rules -- Supreme Court
Mar 9, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Jeremy P. Jacobs
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously today that an agency does not need to post a public notice and solicit comments when it revises one of its interpretive rules.
In a decision on two consolidated cases, the court reversed a federal appellate court ruling against the Department of Labor for its revisions to overtime and minimum wage requirements for mortgage brokers.
And in so doing, the court overturned a seminal precedent from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, 1997's Paralyzed Veterans of America v. D.C. Arena.
Today's ruling in Perez v. Mortgage Bankers Association and Nickols v. Mortgage Bankers Association has broad implications for all federal agencies, including U.S. EPA, which has increasingly relied on interpretive rules and informal guidance on water and air issues.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in the opinion for the court, wrote that the Paralyzed Veteransdoctrine is flatly contradicted by the text of the Administrative Procedure Act.
"The text of the APA answers the question presented," she wrote in a 14-page opinion. "This exemption of interpretive rules from the notice-and-comment process is categorical, and it is fatal to the rule announced in Paralyzed Veterans."
The cases concern an administrative exemption to minimum wage and overtime payments for employees whose primary duty is selling financial products.
In 2010, the Labor Department issued a rule that reversed its prior interpretation. The new rule said mortgage bankers no longer qualify for the exemption.
The Mortgage Bankers Association challenged the new rule in court. They lost in district court, but the D.C. Circuit reversed in July 2013, relying on its precedent in Paralyzed Veterans.Victory for Obama administration
The decision is a broad win for agencies and the Obama administration, which asked the high court to review the case.
For example, when EPA proposed its major Waters of the United States jurisdiction rule under the Clean Water Act, it carved out about 50 agricultural exemptions in a separate interpretive rule (Greenwire, April 4, 2014).
The agency has similarly relied on interpretive rules in determining whether multiple adjacent buildings may be aggregated into one emitting source under the Clean Air Act. And it has issued informal "guidance" relating to mountaintop-removal coal mining.
Thomas Lorenzen, a former Justice Department environmental attorney, said today's ruling gives agencies "more flexibility to fix interpretations that may be legally flawed."
But he also pointed out that the decision could allow future administrations to more easily undo the work of their predecessors.
"What it means is that incoming administrations won't be bound by the interpretive rulings of prior administrations," Lorenzen, now at Dorsey & Whitney, said.Conservative judges sought stronger action
While the judgment was unanimous, some of the court's conservative members would have gone further and overturned Supreme Court precedent that is fundamental to judicial deference to agency rulemaking.
Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that the high court's 1997 Auer v. Robbins decision, which held that a court should defer to an agency interpreting its own regulations, has given the administrative state too much power.
Scalia said the court should "abandon" Auer.
"By supplementing the APA with judge-made doctrines of deference, we have revolutionized the import of interpretive rules' exemption from notice-and-comment rule-making," Scalia wrote in a separate opinion. "Agencies may now use these rules not just to advise the public, but also to bind them."
Two other conservatives, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, also indicated that they were open to such reasoning in their own opinions.
Click here for the opinion.
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High Court Backs Agencies' 'Interpretive' Rule Power But Splits On Deference
Mar 9, 2015 | InsideEPA
By David LaRoss
The Supreme Court in a unanimous ruling is backing EPA's and other agencies' power to amend interpretations of their rules without formal notice and comment, clearing the way for EPA to potentially make sudden changes in policy -- though the justices are split on whether courts should defer to agencies on interpretation of ambiguous rules.
The 9-0 decision issued March 9 in Perez, et al., v. Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), et al. overturns an 18-year-old precedent of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that required notice and comment when an agency changes its formal interpretation of a rule.
Writing for the court, Justice Sonia Sotomayor says the D.C. Circuit's doctrine “is contrary to the clear text of the [Administrative Procedure Act's (APA)] rulemaking provisions, and it improperly imposes on agencies an obligation beyond the 'maximum procedural requirements' specified in the APA.”
Under the APA, agencies must follow notice-and-comment procedures for substantive rulemakings but "interpretive rules” that only interpret the text of an existing regulation are exempt.
The high court's decision reverses a ruling by the D.C. Circuit. The lower court held in the case that the Department of Labor was required to conduct notice and comment when it issued a 2010 memo that said mortgage loan officers qualify for Fair Labor Standards Act employment protections such as mandatory overtime pay. Because the memo sought to reverse a Bush-era interpretive rule exempting the officers from such protections it was effectively a substantive change to existing regulation, the court said.
The D.C. Circuit opinion drew heavily on a 1997 D.C. Circuit decision, Paralyzed Veterans of America v. D.C. Arena, which said revised regulatory interpretations must go through the rulemaking process because when an agency changes its substantive interpretation of a rule, it is effectively changing the requirements of the rule itself.
The high court's decision, however, strikes down Paralyzed Veterans as “incompatible” with the text of the APA. “Because an agency is not required to use notice-and-comment procedures to issue an initial interpretive rule, it is also not required to use those procedures when it amends or repeals that interpretive rule,” Sotomayor says.
Even though EPA is not a party to the case, the high court's ruling will have a direct impact on the agency's power to revise published interpretations of existing rules -- some of which have prompted controversy.
For example, industry groups, many states and others objected to an Obama EPA Clean Water Act (CWA) interpretive rule, finalized jointly with the Army Corps of Engineers March 25 as a supplement to the controversial regulation clarifying the reach of the CWA. The interpretive rule exempted some agricultural conservation practices from CWA dredge-and-fill permits, but drew a hostile reception.
Following the push-back, Congress inserted language in a funding law that forced EPA and the Corps to withdraw the interpretive rule. But although the agencies subsequently formally scrapped the rule, the battle over the policy highlights how contentious EPA's interpretive rules can be.
Prior to the Supreme Court's ruling, observers had suggested that an adverse ruling for the administration could also constrain EPA's ability to revisit Obama officials' policy memos after the next administration takes office in 2017. But the 9-0 decision appears to prevent that outcome from happening.
Concurring Opinions
Although Justices Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas joined the majority opinion in Perez, they all wrote concurring opinions calling for a more sweeping decision that would overturn earlier Supreme Court cases requiring judges to defer to agencies' interpretations of ambiguous regulations, such as the Department of Labor rule at issue in Perez.
The conservatives argued that those decisions have allowed EPA and other agencies to effectively change their rules on a whim by giving regulatory interpretations the force of law as long as the rule in question is ambiguous.
“Because the agency (not Congress) drafts the substantive rules that are the object of those interpretations, giving them deference allows the agency to control the extent of its notice-and-comment-free domain. To expand this domain, the agency need only write substantive rules more broadly and vaguely, leaving plenty of gaps to be filled in later, using interpretive rules unchecked by notice and comment. The APA does not remotely contemplate this regime,” Scalia says in his concurrence.
Instead of enforcing a “best” reading of a rule, courts have long deferred to an agency's reading of its own regulation unless the interpretation is “contrary to unambiguous statutory language . . . plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation, or that application of the regulation [is] arbitrary or capricious.” The standard is known as "Auer deference" from the 1997 ruling in Auer v. Robbins that most clearly established it, but was first laid out in the 1945 decision Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co.
EPA has often benefited from the Auer standard. Recently, in its Aug. 15 decision in El Dorado Chemical Company v. EPA, a unanimous panel of the 8th Circuit backed the agency's 2011 rejection of proposed site-specific Clean Water Act (CWA) criteria in Arkansas, in part because the court deferred to EPA's “reasonable” interpretation of its own regulations governing the procedure.
The three concurrences represent the first time the high courts' critics of such regulatory deference have laid out the legal arguments for striking down the doctrine, after Scalia, Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in dissents to the 2013 CWA case Decker v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center that they would consider overturning Auer but did not set detail their reasons for doing so.
“Because this doctrine effects a transfer of the judicial power to an executive agency, it raises constitutional concerns. This line of precedents undermines our obligation to provide a judicial check on the other branches, and it subjects regulated parties to precisely the abuses that the Framers sought to prevent,” Thomas says in his Perez concurrence.
Alito does not raise his own arguments for overturning the deference cases, but says in his concurrence that, “The opinions of Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas offer substantial reasons why the Seminole Rock doctrine may be incorrect.”
Since Decker, opponents of EPA and other regulatory agencies have sought a test case that could be a vehicle for a decision overturning Auer, but few candidates have emerged. El Dorado appeared to be one such candidate but was never appealed to the high court, while the justiced declined certiorari in a closely watched 9th Circuit ruling in a labor law case -- Peri and Sons Farms v. Riviera, et al -- that raised the deference question.
A pending case over whether EPA's CWA rules allow some air emissions from farms to be permitted -- Rose Acre Farms Inc. v. North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources, et al., before the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina -- also deals with Auer but is procedurally uncertain, as EPA and the state are arguing that the case, which deals with a permit previously litigated in state court, has no place before a federal judge.
A West Virginia federal judge ruled against EPA in an earlier decision on the same issue, Lois Alt, et al. v. EPA, et al., but EPA abandoned its appeal of that case before briefing began, avoiding a precedential opinion and the chance for a Supreme Court appeal.
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EPA 'Tier 3' Advocates Say Oil Sector's Fears Over Rule Proven Unfounded
Mar 9, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Stuart Parker
Proponents of EPA's final “Tier 3” fuel air rule say current low gas prices combined with the oil sector's decision not to sue over the rule despite claims it would spur gas price spikes show industry's attacks on the rule were unfounded, echoing what advocates say was a flawed “train wreck” campaign utilities waged against EPA air rules.
Petroleum industry officials counter that EPA only finalized the Tier 3 standards in April and the rule will not be implemented until 2017, so its real world costs remain to be seen despite current gas prices. “Our study showed that Tier 3, like any regulatory requirement, increases business costs, but we cannot speculate on pump prices. Also, keep in mind that Tier 3 hasn't been implemented yet,” says an American Petroleum Institute (API) official.
While EPA was developing the Tier 3 rule -- which sets limits on sulfur in fuel and revises vehicle emissions standards -- it prompted support from states seeking mobile source pollution cuts and environmentalists, who said it would help states attain agency air standards while also helping to protect public health.
But it drew opposition from fuel sector groups who warned that compliance would impose massive costs, and that these costs would be passed on to consumers through gas price increases.
For example, API initially touted a study saying the rule would cost refiners 12 to 25 cents per gallon more to produce a gallon of gasoline, and that four to seven refineries would close rather than comply. The group then revised the prediction in March 2012, based on less-aggressive assumptions, to a cost of 6 to 9 cents. API stressed at the time that this was the extra predicted cost to refiners, not the direct extra cost incurred by consumers.
EPA in its regulatory impact analysis, published to support the April 28 final rule, said the fuel sulfur cut “is expected to increase manufacturers' costs of gasoline production by about 0.7 cents per gallon.”
Despite harsh criticism from the oil sector that EPA's cost-effectiveness analysis to justify the rule was seriously flawed, neither API nor the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) filed suit over the merits of the final Tier 3 rule. The only litigation over the rule is from ethanol manufacturers concerned with specific provisions regarding EPA test fuels policy that they say impedes uptake of more ethanol into the fuel supply.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will hear oral argument in Energy Future Coalition, et al. v. EPA, et al. March 20, but the suit does not challenge the central fuel sulfur limits and emissions controls established by Tier 3 -- the standards that API and AFPM said would cause cost increases.
Sulfur Reductions
EPA's Tier 3 rule has a compliance deadline of January 2017, when refiners will have to supply fuel with a reduced sulfur content. Car makers will have to comply starting with model year 2017 vehicles. Reducing fuel sulfur content from the current federal limit of 30 parts per million (ppm) to 10 ppm directly reduces sulfur dioxide emitted by cars, but crucially also allows catalysts to function better and meet tougher limits on nitrogen oxides.
In addition to the petroleum industry not suing over the Tier 3 rule, the fuels sector has been relatively silent on the regulation since its issuance. For example, it appears the most recent API press release on the rule was from March 3, 2014. In that statement, API Downstream Group Director Bob Greco said, “This rule’s biggest impact is to increase the cost of delivering energy to Americans, making it a threat to consumers, jobs, and the economy,” and citing an analysis by the consulting firm Baker & O'Brien that said the rule could impose $10 billion in capital costs.
At press time gas prices were also low, which some proponents of the Tier 3 rule argue help make that case that the final regulation is not having the adverse impact on fuel prices that critics projected.
Since 2012, sources note, gas prices have fallen sharply for reasons unrelated to EPA fuel rules, including a rapid expansion of unconventional oil drilling that API in television commercials touts as soon likely to make the country an “energy superpower.” This makes the public less receptive to warnings about gas price rises, sources say.
Industry's Warnings
The various factors -- the lack of litigation, industry's silence on the issue and low gas prices -- combined are prompting some supporters of the rule to say it was another example of industry claiming massive costs over an EPA regulation in an attempt to block it, only to drop such campaigns after the rule's issuance.
“I think the oil industry complaints were more rhetoric than reality. The fact that the oil industry hasn't sued suggests the EPA was right all along in saying Tier 3 would not significantly affect” gas prices, says a clean air advocate.
Several years ago, power companies retreated from using the once-widespread “train wreck” scenario to explain the threat of EPA rules causing widespread power plant closures and electric grid instability, saying the term lost force as it no longer reflected reality given EPA outreach to industry on the rules and a sectoral shift toward natural gas.
Reliability concerns with the rules remain, said a former utility regulator at the time, but they are "very localized," and focused on the impacts of the rules on a few strategic power plant retirements.
For Tier 3, a Northeastern state air quality expert adds, “I do think this is another example of industry fear-mongering that isn't panning out, and I don't think waiting for broader implementation is going to change this.” The source notes “incidences of the same type of hyperbole when fuel sulfur content changed” with prior rules.
The source says “it's pretty clear the scary costs aren't going to happen just looking at the numbers -- refining costs are a relatively small part of the cost of a gallon of gasoline, averaging about 15% over 2000-2011.”
In addition, “there's also the reality of low sulfur gasoline already being sold in California, the European Union, and Japan with scant evidence of it sinking their economies,” according to the source.
A public health advocate notes “the price of gasoline plummeted after the rule was adopted. That limited the resonance of the higher price arguments and has kept them busy with other bigger, bottom-line issues. . . .Industry has shifted to fighting other things, including the proposed ozone standard.”
EPA has proposed tightening its 2008 ozone national ambient air quality standard of 75 parts per billion (ppb) down to between 65 and 70 ppb, again prompting industry claims of massive costs.
'Uncertain' Costs
Oil sector groups, however, argue that it is far too early to know the true costs of Tier 3. An AFPM official said, “Tier 3 was promulgated in 2014 but will not be effective until 2017, which is why we are uncertain what the exact impact will be on the industry. Refiners will have to build new hydrotreaters or expand the capacity of existing hydrotreaters to reduce the sulfur content of gasoline, which will result in costs to the industry."
The group has previously warned that in addition to raising costs, the extra processing required in refineries to remove additional sulfur to comply with the Tier 3 regulation will consume more energy and result in increased greenhouse gas emissions, contravening the administration's goal of fighting global warming.
Also, major industry groups including API are now focused on other major EPA rules, such as the agency's proposed greenhouse gas (GHG) standards for existing power plants and the ozone NAAQS revision.
API has already led criticism of the likely tougher ozone NAAQS, warning it will result in huge compliance costs that, according to some estimates, could make it the most expensive EPA regulation ever.
Air Quality
Meanwhile, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) in a new study released Feb. 24 found that progressive reductions in distillate fuel sulfur over the past 20 years have improved air quality while only slightly reducing the energy content of fuel. Distillate fuel covered by the study included diesel fuels for road and non-road use, marine fuels, locomotives and also heating oils. Lower energy content per gallon of fuel could result in higher consumer costs, if more fuel were required to travel the same distance.
“Since 2006, most distillate fuel has had less than 15 [ppm] of sulfur, a drastic change from the early 1990s, when high-sulfur diesel had an average sulfur content of 3,000 ppm. This change has improved air quality by reducing sulfur emissions with only a minor effect on the average energy content of distillate fuel consumed in the United States,” EIA said in its study. Reductions in sulfur content reduce the weight per gallon and a small portion of the thermal energy obtained from the combustion of a gallon of distillate fuel, EIA says.
“EIA's calculation of the heat content of distillate fuel supply in the United States reflects these changes, going from about 138.6 thousand British thermal units (Btu) per gallon in 1994, to an estimated 137.5 thousand Btu per gallon in 2014,” -- a difference EIA considers “minor.”
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Petroleum Industry, EPA Negotiating Over Methane Leakage Rules
Mar 9, 2015 | E&E - Climatewire
By Gayathri Vaidyanathan
U.S. EPA's efforts to track greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas industry are facing yet another legal challenge in federal court.
In January, the American Petroleum Institute (API), the largest industry trade group, challenged a landmark EPA program that tracks emissions from the oil and gas industry every year. The program, the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, began in 2011 and requires all energy companies emitting greater than 25,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases to report their emissions. The rule was formulated under the Clean Air Act.
Until last year, EPA allowed companies to roughly estimate emissions using opaque calculations of their own devising. This led to concerns that industry may be undercounting its carbon pollution.
EPA phased out that practice, except in a few cases, beginning this year (ClimateWire, Nov. 17, 2014).
API has challenged that phaseout at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, its third attempt to block methane emissions reporting through legal challenge. Earlier suits were filed in 2011 after EPA first announced the industry would have to report its emissions.
That API would attack the rules in court is not surprising; most rules are challenged by parties that have a vested interest in having them altered, said Darin Schroeder, an associate attorney with the Clean Air Task Force.
API's challenges are a formality at this stage. The group has asked the court to put its suits on the back burner "pending ongoing negotiations with the [EPA]" on the regulations. The negotiations alluded to are petitions API filed with EPA asking the agency to reconsider parts of the reporting rule.
EPA is still reviewing these petitions.Hoping to strike a deal
"We hope to avoid litigation if possible, but we have concerns with some technical aspects of the reporting rule that need to be worked out," Sabrina Fang, spokeswoman for API, said in an email.
The Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program is a puzzle piece among the Obama administration's larger attempts to curb emissions from oil and gas. The industry is the United States' second-biggest industrial source of methane, a potent greenhouse gas with a global warming potential 86 times that of carbon dioxide over a 20-year timescale.
EPA has said that it would cut emissions from the industry by 40 to 45 percent below 2012 levels by 2025 through new regulations (ClimateWire, Jan. 14).
API has argued that new regulations are unnecessary and the industry is capable of policing itself. But without a way to track emissions cogently through the reporting program, its self-policing could not be properly assessed, Peter Zalzal, an attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund, said in a blog post.
EDF, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club have indicated their support for EPA in court filings.
"It's important to provide better understanding of the data, to enhance transparency, and we think it's a legally rigorous action, and we'll continue to defend it in the D.C. Circuit," Zalzal said in a phone interview.
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Small Towns and Oil Industry Play Wait and See in Wake of Ohio Drilling Ruling
Mar 9, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer and Mike Lee
Almost three weeks after Ohio's top court struck down a town's restrictive drilling ordinances, lawyers and local officials are predicting another round of court cases to settle how much control local governments have over oil and gas development.
The state Supreme Court ruled that the Akron-area town of Munroe Falls could not require Beck Energy Corp. to get separate drilling permits, finding that only the state can issue drilling permits. But it left open whether cities can use zoning to control where drilling happens, and whether the outright drilling bans in some towns can continue to stand.
In the weeks following the highly anticipated decision, attorneys have rushed to interpret how and when that issue will be decided. Will Ohio follow in the footsteps of New York and Pennsylvania, which have preserved some local powers over drilling; follow Colorado and Texas, which have taken a harder line; or chart a new path?
"We've reached the first fork in the road, and it appears that the Ohio Supreme Court has generally decided which path they're going to take: Legitimate local zoning regulations are unlikely to be wholly pre-empted," BakerHostetler attorney Ryan Babiuch said. "There will be a new wave of litigation that could flesh that out."
Ohio's oil and gas production is growing rapidly, so it's a crucial question. Since development began in the Utica Shale formation in 2010, the industry has drilled more than 1,300 wells, and oil production has more than tripled to 42,900 barrels a day in December.
In the primary Munroe Falls opinion, three justices assailed the city's attempt at a permitting scheme that required drillers to pay an $800 application fee, hold a public meeting and wait a year after City Council zoning approval before moving forward on a project (EnergyWire, Feb. 18). But they quickly followed that up by highlighting the decision's own limitations.
"We make no judgment as to whether other ordinances could coexist with the General Assembly's comprehensive regulatory scheme," Justice Judith French wrote in the opinion. "Rather, our holding is limited to the five municipal ordinances at issue in this case."
A concurring opinion by Justice Terrence O'Donnell adds that "whether a municipality has authority to enact zoning ordinances that affect oil and gas wells within its territory is a question yet to be decided."
Since the court didn't reach a majority decision, the two opinions must be interpreted together, and they clearly signal that zoning and other issues are still in play, Babiuch said.A test case in Broadview Heights?
The first test may come from Broadview Heights, a city of 20,000 south of Cleveland.
Residents there worked with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund to pass a "community bill of rights" in 2012 that bars future oil and gas drilling. State permit-holder Bass Energy Co. sued the city, and the case is now in Cuyahoga County court. A related suit asserting the residents' right to self-governance is also before the court.
According to John Keller, a Cleveland-based attorney who represented Beck Energy in Munroe Falls and is representing Bass Energy in Broadview Heights, the Supreme Court's recent decision means a definite win in the Broadview Heights case.
"That ship has sailed," he said, noting that both sides have pushed the court for summary judgment, and he expects a decision in the next couple of months.
But defenders of the Broadview Heights bill of rights say their case is entirely different from the circumstances in Munroe Falls. The city's ordinance does not attempt a permitting system like Munroe Falls did; it instead purports to assert the constitutional rights of the residents to reject development.
"Our case, this is still about our rights, the people in Broadview Heights," said community organizer Tish O'Dell, who is a plaintiff in the self-governance case. "[Munroe Falls] highlights that the drillers have more rights than the people, and how much longer will people accept that?"
O'Dell's attorney Terry Lodge agreed, noting that their case "is based literally on different parts of the Ohio Constitution." But, he added, the courts may not see it that way.
"I'm not crazy," he told EnergyWire "I fully understand that this is a very novel assertion of ancient legal principles. The current legal structure of our federal and state systems is very much geared toward protecting property interests."
Still, if a court strikes down Broadview Heights' bill of rights, the question of zoning will likely remain unanswered. Supporters of the city's approach are quick to acknowledge that it's a fundamental challenge to the status quo -- a far cry from the traditional zoning powers the justices imagined in the Munroe Falls ruling.Watching for new challenges
According to lawyers following the local control issue, a solid follow-up case to Munroe Falls may simply not exist yet. Zoning rules and drilling bans in some other Ohio cities, including Athens, Yellow Springs and Mansfield, have not faced industry challenges yet. And the collapse in oil prices means less industry fuel for challenges in those locales, which are not considered prime shale territory anyway, said BakerHostetler attorney Marty Booher.
Still, officials in towns in the Utica Shale region are watching the courts. Voters in Athens approved a ban on hydraulic fracturing last year. Athens' law director Lisa Eliason said the city had no plans to re-evaluate it in light of the Munroe Falls decision. Carrollton, the seat of the biggest oil-producing county, had a ban on drilling inside its village limits even before the Utica Shale boom started, Village Administrator Denny Roudebush said.
Others are more sanguine. Unlike in Texas and Oklahoma, where oil and gas wells exist a few hundred feet from homes and offices, drilling companies have generally avoided built-up areas in Ohio.
"Right now, I don't know anybody drilling in town," said Dan Bing, the mayor of Lisbon, which sits near the Pennsylvania border. "It's mostly out in the country areas."
The small towns and villages may have a better chance of controlling drilling by using more conventional legal doctrines, said Nathan Johnson and Trent Doughterty, attorneys with the Ohio Environmental Council.
The Supreme Court's wording on zoning may give towns a chance to defend their bans, as long as they're couched as land-use decisions and not an attempt to regulate drilling, Dougherty said. Also, Ohio law allows communities to protect their water sources, even outside their boundaries, Johnson said.
For now, it's a game of wait and see until a new challenge comes forward.
"There's going to have to be probably multiple legal actions to determine this in the long term," Dougherty said. "It's definitely going to benefit lawyers."
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East Coast Dems Push Against Atlantic Offshore Drilling
Mar 9, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Twelve Senate Democrats from the East Coast asked Obama administration Monday to take Atlantic Ocean offshore drilling off the table.
The senators, led by Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), do not represent the states closest to the potential drilling.
But drilling anywhere in the Atlantic “has the potential to adversely impact our states’ fishing, tourism and recreation industries, our coastlines and our environment,” they wrote Monday to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell.
Given the risks of offshore drilling, they said drilling should be banned on the entire Atlantic coast.
The senators are most worried about the potential for oil spills, and cited research from the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that found that more than 1,100 miles of coastline had oil after the spill.
“As we saw just a few short years ago, offshore oil spills do not respect artificial state boundaries and a spill in the Atlantic could affect our states,” they said.
Interior proposed in January to allow some offshore oil and gas drilling off the coasts of states from Virginia to Georgia some point in the future. The oil industry and Republicans cheered the decision, while deriding the Obama for not opening more areas for development.
Markey and Sens. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Ben Cardin (D-Md.), all of whom signed Monday’s letter, blasted the Atlantic drilling proposal shortly after it came out as well.
Meanwhile, lawmakers from the states that neighbor the waters that could host drilling have applauded the plan, including Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.).
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Kemp: Oil Train Fires Reveal Problematic Safety Culture
Mar 9, 2015 | Reuters
By John Kemp
Two more serious derailments and fires involving trains carrying crude oil in the past week confirm there is a serious problem with the safety culture on North American railroads.The latest fiery derailments occurred in northern Illinois involving a train operated by BNSF and northern Ontario involving a train operated by Canadian National Railway.
They come just weeks after serious oil train fires in West Virginia involving a train operated by CSX and another Canadian National derailment innorthern Ontario.
Fortunately, these derailments occurred in sparsely populated areas, but it is only a matter of time before a train derails in a densely populated urban center and risks a mass casualty incident.
The U.S. Department of Transportation predicts more than 200 crude and ethanol carrying trains will derail over the next 20 years, including ten in urban areas.
Based on plausible assumptions, at least one of these urban derailments could cause a catastrophic accident with deaths, injuries, damage to property and environment clean up costing $6 billion.
The 200-plus predicted incidents will cost more than $18 billion in total, according to the Department of Transportation ("Oil by rail shipments are playing Russian roulette" Feb 23).
Yet regulators and the industry (including railroads, oil shippers, and oil producers) appear to be in a state of denial about the seriousness problem and the need for urgency tackling it.
The U.S. Department of Transportation and groups representing the industry have failed to produce timely and effective response to the spate of train fires.
So it is time for Congress and the White House to step in and impose a solution to enable crude to be carried safely while protecting communities along the major oil by rail corridors.
MULTIPLE CAUSES
Research has shown serious accidents in any industry almost always have multiple causes and occur when multiple safety systems fail simultaneously.
The spate of train fires over the last few years have revealed at least inter-related safety problems: (1) trains are derailing with alarming frequency; (2) tank cars cannot contain their loads when they come off the rails; and (3) crude oil is much more flammable and hazardous than originally estimated by the industry and regulators.
The multiple causes of train fires have encouraged industry participants to engage in a blame game and try to shift the responsibility and costs of solving the problem onto others.
Railroads insist crude is highly dangerous and should be reclassified under the hazardous materials regulations and carried in strengthened tank cars.
Oil shippers and producers dispute the characterisation of the crude as unusually flammable and instead insist railroads must do a much better job of keeping trains on the tracks.
FRACTURED RESPONSE
The industry and regulators have responded with a patchwork of measures that have tried to tackle individual aspects of the problem.
The Association of American Railroads (AAR), representing the major railroad operators, has introduced speed restrictions and other safeguards for high-hazard flammable trains meant to reduce the probability of derailments (Circular OT-55-N).
The AAR, together with the Railway Supply Institute's (RSI) Committee on Tank Cars, representing shippers, has also introduced revised construction standards for new tank cars built to carry crude oil and ethanol (Circular CPC-1232).
For the U.S. government, the Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Administration (PHMSA) and Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) have stepped up safety inspections to ensure crude has been properly tested and classified under the hazardous materials regulations.
North Dakota's Industrial Commission, which regulates production in the Bakken, where much of the oil involved in train fires originated, has brought in new rules requiring the stabilization of crude prior to shipment.
And Canada has introduced its own restrictions requiring the accelerated phase out of existing old DOT-111 tank cars, requiring railroads to carry more insurance, and allowing railroads to collect higher, safety-related fees for carrying oil.
LEADERSHIP NEEDED
None of these actions individually or collectively has been enough to reduce the risk of derailments and train fires.
Recent accidents have involved trains traveling slowly well under the new limits prescribed by OT-55-N, using new and supposedly stronger tank cars prescribed by CPC-1232, and with oil correctly classified and placarded under the Hazmat Regulations.
The industry's voluntary actions have not done enough to reduce the risk of derailments and train fires.
New CPC-1232 tank car standards are only a minimal improvement over the old DOT-111 standards they replaced according to the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates the cause of accidents.
NTSB has identified improved tank car safety as one of its top 10 priorities for 2015. Safety regulators want much tougher tank car standards coupled with slower speed limits and other measures to keep trains on the tracks.
NTSB wants tank cars to have thicker steel shells than the DOT-111 and CPC-1232 models, full-height head-shields to protect them against puncturing in collisions, and more protection from the heat generated by train fires.
NTSB wants trains routed away from densely populated urban areas wherever possible and the introduction of positive train control technology.
NEW SAFETY CULTURE
But the most important change has nothing to do with train speeds or tank car standards: it is cultural and must come from the top of the rail industry and the U.S. government.
There is complacency within the industry about the risks posed by crude-carrying trains. Occasional derailments and fires are seen as an unfortunate but unavoidable cost of the oil boom.
This is dangerous and short-sighted. If a train disaster like Lac-Megantic occurred in the heart of a U.S. city, the political backlash would jeopardize the entire oil-by-rail business.
To safeguard the future of the industry, the squabbling between railroads, shippers and regulators about who is responsible for train fires, and the costs and benefits of various safety options, must end.
Instead, railroads, shippers and regulators must embrace a "safety culture" that targets zero train fires (which is a far cry from the predicted 200 over 20 years). Safety must be made the oil by rail industry's top priority.
There is a rich literature on what contributes to a good safety culture. But safety culture always begins at the top with an emphasis on zero avoidable accidents from an organization's leaders.
The existing approach to writing oil by rail regulations - led by lawyers, lobbyists and inside safety experts - has demonstrably failed.
It is time to clear them out of the way in favor of a broad new safety strategy agreed between the chief executives of the railroads, shippers and oil companies as well as the White House and the Department of Transportation, with appropriate legislation and oversight from Congress.
If the crude by rail industry cannot develop an adequate safety culture on its own, it is time to impose one from outside.
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Stronger Oil Trains Are Still Rupturing — Energy Journal
Mar 9, 2015 | The Wall Street Journal
By Christopher Harder
ONGOING SPILLS MAY MEAN TOUGHER RULES
New, tougher, railroad tanker cars carrying crude oil across North America amid the shale boom are still rupturing in derailments. That could lead to increased momentum for rules aimed at further cutting the risk of shipping crude by rail, Russell Gold and Paul Vieira report. Four recent accidents are a sign that the new tanker cars are still prone to breaking. In the past month alone, significant derailments of crude-carrying trains have occurred in West Virginia and Illinois and twice in Ontario, including one Saturday. Crude leaked in each case, and exploded into several giant fireballs.
The U.S. Transportation Department has proposed new rules including the requirements to make new cars stronger and retrofitting existing cars. The White House is reviewing the options and is expected to issue recommendations in May. Canadian Transport Minister Lisa Raitt has proposed a new tax on crude shipments by rail aimed at building an insurance fund.
Meanwhile, Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries Secretary General Abdalla Salem el-Badri said the cartel’s decision to continue pumping crude amid collapsing prices is hurting the U.S. shale-oil industry. He also said a global investment reduction may cause an oil shortage that will push prices higher.
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Mar 9, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
A train carrying crude oil derailed and caught fire in northern Ontario, Canada, the second derailment in three days for Canadian National Railway Co.
The oil was still burning Sunday night in Gogama, more than a day after 38 of the train’s 94 cars derailed, Reuters reported.
It is just the latest major incident involving trains carrying crude oil in North America, a transportation method that has seen a sharp spike in utilization for oil as production has reached its highest point in decades.
The incidents, including one in Quebec, Canada, that killed 47 in 2013, and another major one in February in West Virginia, have caused regulators in the United States to consider rules that would require an overhaul in safety systems for the trains carrying crude and a phaseout of older cars.
Canada, meanwhile, is on track to completely phase out old cars.
A bridge over a waterway was damaged in Saturday’s derailment and five tanker cars fell into the water and leaked. Responders deployed water booms to contain the oil spill, Reuters said.
The train was carrying oil sands from Alberta and was on its way to eastern Canada for refining.
The derailment was about 23 miles away from another Canadian National oil train derailment on Feb. 14, according to the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, which is investigating the incident.
Two days before the Saturday crash, another Canadian National train derailed elsewhere in Ontario, shutting down the railroad’s main line.
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Oil Train Derailment in Ontario Adds to String of Accidents
Mar 9, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
A Canadian National Railway Co. train hauling crude derailed and caught fire in rural Ontario early Saturday, less than a month after a separate oil train crashed in the same area.
CN said it was working with local emergency crews to put out a fire and clear multiple tank cars from a river near Gogama, Ontario. No injuries were reported.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada said it would investigate the incident, which follows a string of similar derailments and explosions across North America.
In 2013, a 72-car oil train hauling crude from North Dakota's Bakken Shale play derailed and exploded in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, killing 47 people and prompting regulators to develop new tank car standards and oil train operating procedures in both the United States and Canada.
The crude involved in Saturday's derailment originated in Alberta, CN said. The oil was contained in newer tank cars built to a tougher voluntary standard in place since 2011.
Ontario's Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca said he was "very concerned" by the accident and called on federal authorities to act on rail safety.
The CN derailment came just two days after a BNSF Railway Co. oil train jumped the tracks and caught fire near Galena, Ill. That accident prompted several nearby residents to evacuate but didn't cause any injuries.
Last month, a CSX Corp. oil train derailed and exploded in Mount Carbon, W.Va., destroying a home and injuring one resident.
On Feb. 14, a CN crude oil train derailed and burst into flames near Gogama, just 24 miles from the site of Saturday's accident. Emergency responders let the fire burn itself out over several days.
The spate of crude-by-rail disasters has drawn sharp criticism from politicians and environmentalists, many of whom are calling for an immediate ban on older-model tank cars often used to carry crude.
Mollie Matteson, a senior scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity, released a statement Saturday calling for an immediate moratorium on the use of oil trains.
"The oil and railroad industries are playing Russian roulette with people's lives and our environment, and the Obama administration needs to put a stop to it," Matteson said.
In the United States, oil-by-rail shipments have shot up from practically nothing in 2007 to nearly 500,000 carloads in 2014, according to data from the Association of American Railroads.
Canada has seen a similarly dramatic rise in the number of tank cars moving crude east to coastal refiners.
The U.S. Department of Transportation and its Canadian counterpart Transport Canada have coordinated on updates to oil train operating requirements and tank car specifications, but both organizations have faced criticism for taking too long as rising crude shipments bring more derailments.
The final U.S. oil train safety rule is now scheduled to be published this May.
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