New safety rules for crude oil shipments by rail criticized by both sides

New safety rules for crude oil shipments by rail criticized by both sides

Published 5 May 2015

Regulators with the Department of Transportation(DOT) last Friday unveiled new rules for transporting crude oil by rail. The measures are expected to improve rail safety and reduce the risk of oil train accidents, but both the railway industry and public safety advocates have already issued criticism. Lawmakers representing states with oil trains traffic say the regulations do not go far enough in protecting the public, while railway representatives say the rules would be costly and result in few safety benefits.

Regulators with the Department of Transportation (DOT) last Friday unveiled new rules for transporting crude oil by rail. The measures are expected to improve rail safety and reduce the risk of oil train accidents, but both the railway industry and public safety advocates have already issued criticism. Lawmakers representing states with oil trains traffic say the regulations do not go far enough in protecting the public, while railway representatives say the rules would be costly and result in few safety benefits.
The new measures create a new standard, “high-hazard flammable trains,” defined as “a continuous block of twenty or more tank cars loaded with flammable liquid or thirty-five or more tank cars loaded with a flammable liquid dispersed through a train.” Oil trains with as many as 120 cars have become common sights in Philadelphia, Albany, and Chicago as they move crude oil from the Bakken region of North Dakota to east coast refineries.
According to the New York Times, oil train accidents have increased with the growth of Bakken region oil production, highlighting the hazards of shipping large amounts of potentially explosive material via rail. So far this year, there have been four explosions and spills in the United States and one in Canada. In July 2013, forty-seven people died in Canada after a runaway oil train derailed and exploded in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, destroying much of the city’s downtown.
The new regulations introduce a safer tank car model for oil and ethanol shipments, and mandate the use of electronically controlled brakes. The oldest tank cars used in oil train shipments, DOT-111s, will be replaced within three years with DOT-117s, which have thicker shells and better fire protection. A newer generation of tank cars, CPC-1232s, will have to be retired or refitted to meet the standards of the DOT-117s, by 2020.
Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) said the new rules gave railroads too much time to remove older tank cars from service. “The good news is that the standards are predictable, but the bad news is that the phaseout time is too lenient,” he said. Schumer is one of seven senators who introduced a bill that seeks to fine railroad companies for transporting crude oil via old tank cars. The fee would begin at $175 and increase to $1,400 per car by 2018.
The Houston Chronicle reports that the bill would raise an estimated $600 million to train first responders, clean up spills, and relocate rail tracks around populated areas. “The idea is to speed up the phase-out of older tank cars,” said Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon). He added it “allows us to move in a much faster and more aggressive fashion to make oil by rail transportation safer.”
Regarding new brake systems, DOT claims that electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes are more effective than air brakes or dynamic brakes that are currently being used, and that their use would allow train operators to stop faster if there was an obstacle on the tracks. Railroads are pushing back on having to adopt ECP brakes by 2021.
“The DOT couldn’t make a safety case for ECP but forged ahead anyway,” Edward R. Hamberger, the president and chief executive of the Association of American Railroads (AAR), said in a statement. “I have a hard time believing the determination to impose ECP brakes is anything but a rash rush to judgment.”
AAR has estimated the cost of installing ECP brakes to be $9,665 per tank car. Sarah Feinberg, the acting administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration, said: “The mission of the FRA is safety and not focusing on what is convenient or inexpensive or provides the most cost savings for the rail industry. When I focus on safety, I land on ECP. It’s a very black-and-white issue for me.”
The Railway Supply Institute, which represents tank car makers, also criticized the use of ECP brakes, saying their effectiveness was not proved and would not provide a significant safety advantage.
Local and state officials have spent the past year asking for a federal mandate that requires railroads to notify local public safety officials of any oil train traffic, but according to the new regulations, railroads will need to have only a “point of contact” for information related to the routing of hazardous materials. Senators Wyden and Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) are disappointed that DOT officials failed to expand public information about oil trains. “Instead of providing first responders more details about oil shipments, railroads will simply be required to give our firefighters a phone number,” they said.
Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) wants oil companies to reduce the volatility of Bakken crude, which is more likely to catch fire and explode than other forms of crude, but the new rules failed to address her concern. “It does nothing to address explosive volatility, very little to reduce the threat of rail car punctures, and is too slow on the removal of the most dangerous cars,” she said. “It’s more of a status quo rule.”