Collection: The Northwest's Pipeline on Rails

On July 23, the federal regulatory agencies in charge of oil trains released the details of a rulemaking proposal to improve the safety of moving large quantities of flammable materials by rail, particularly crude oil and ethanol. Oil trains have been the subject of increasing worry after five separate derailments in the past year unleashed towering infernos. The recent announcement opened up a sixty-day comment period after which the US Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) will issue a set of final rules.

In our judgment most media coverage of the proposed regulations has been rather credulous, overlooking several important dimensions and ignoring some glaring flaws. (One counterexample is Joel Connelly’s coverage at Seattle P-I.) So to correct the record, here is Sightline’s take on the good, the bad, and the ugly in the new proposed tank car standards.

The Good

• The proposed rules have been released sooner than expected. Many industry observers speculated that this rulemaking process, which started in September 2013, would drag on much longer.
• The draft rules are fairly comprehensive, addressing many of the unique safety issues of unit trains carrying oil or ethanol, including questions about how oil producers classify their crude, how train braking systems operate, how emergency responders are to be notified, emergency response planning, rail routing, and train speeds. Among the most closely watched issues are rules that will set standards for new-built and retrofitted tank cars.
• PHMSA concurrently released a report summarizing an analysis of Bakken crude oil. Unsurprisingly, the federal data show that crude oil from the Bakken region in North Dakota tends to be more volatile and flammable than other crude oils. The new findings contradict recent assertions by the American Petroleum Institute that, based on their private studies, Bakken oil is no different from other flammable liquids commonly shipped in DOT-111s and that therefore there is no need to change tank car standards, which incidentally would increase their costs.
• The feds propose to create a new improved tank car classification, DOT-117, for transporting Class 3 flammable liquids in unit trains.

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This is the kind of oil industry-friendly approach to regulation that should make you want to bang your head on your desk. Bloomberg has the story:

The oil industry and the railroads that haul its crude have offered U.S. regulators a joint plan to phase out a type of older tank car tied to a spate of fiery accidents… The parties agreed to scrap a fleet of thousands of DOT-111s within three years if manufacturers agree they can replace or retrofit the tank cars in that period. [emphasis added]

What happened here is that the American Petroleum Institute and the Association of American Railroads met privately with federal regulators to offer this proposal in lieu of more stringent safety rules, such as those recommended by the National Transportation Safety Board.

Keep in mind that the DOT-111 tank cars in question are notoriously and obviously unsafe. Four times in the last year they have derailed and unleashed towering infernos, killing 47 people in one case. Yet the industry wants to keep them rolling on a daily basis through the heart of big cities, past major league baseball games, schools, cruise ship terminals, you name it. Even though these shipments expose taxpayers to enormous liability risks because the industry is radically under-insured against catastrophic accidents.

And even though these shipments are so dangerous that the slow federal regulatory response earned the ire of the top US transportation safety official who called it, “a tombstone mentality” and said, “we don’t need a higher body count before they move forward.”

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