Lifting a Ban on Safety
Terry H. Schwadron
March 18, 2020
When the Keystone XL Pipeline project popped up, the prime justification for building a 1,300-mile pipeline to move Canadian oil to Gulf ports was safety for transporting oil long distances.
Indeed, it was only because the Obama administration challenged the notion, accepting the popular insistence and protests that such a pipeline would inevitably start leaking crude oil into the soil across a number of states and tribal areas that the project got delayed — until the Trump administration took over.
The project was summarily approved and the Trump assault on the nation’s environmental regulations was on.
Indeed, various pipelines have leaked. Still, on the whole, word among environmentalists was that the pipelines, flawed as they are, prove much safer than the idea of transporting fuels through populated areas by trains.
So, it should surprise no one that the Trump administration is now moving to allow railroads nationwide to ship liquefied natural gas as part of a push to increase energy exports. That practice has remained banned because of uncertain hazards.
This time, the change involves the Transportation Department which has proposed a rule allowing liquefied natural gas, or LNG, shipments and imposing no additional safety regulations. It could go into effect in early May — eight months before results are expected from a Federal Railroad Administration study of tank car safety.
There has been criticism from local elected officials, attorneys general from 15 states and the District of Columbia, firefighter organizations, unions that represent railroad employees, environmentalists and the National Transportation Safety Board.
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The Washington Post recently outlined the proposals, the politics and the chances for accidents, noting that trains of tank cars would run through populated areas in South Florida and through Philadelphia, where it should share tracks with passenger trains. The Associated Press has published a list of the most dramatic oil tank-car accidents.
The Transportation Department also proposed the rule without consulting Native American tribes, violating the treaties between the Puyallups and the federal government, as well as executive orders governing relations with Native Americans signed by presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
Already, small amounts of LNG have been transported by rail on a trial basis in Alaska and Florida.
If the new rule is adopted, trains of 100 or more tank cars, each with a capacity of 30,000 gallons, could start carrying LNG, primarily from shale fields to saltwater ports, where it would be loaded onto ships for export. Those routes cross hundreds of different jurisdictions across the country, some that rely on volunteer firefighters as first responders, as well as major population centers.
The rule apparently did not get much notice. The time for public comment has closed.
Those pushing for a rule change have included energy companies and railroads who want to take advantage of a glut in natural gas to export it, earning better prices than the domestic market will support. Donald Trump ordered the change last year, with a shortened review period.
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Curiously, one of the bigger objections came from the government itself, in the form of the National Transportation Safety Board. It wrote, “The risks of catastrophic LNG releases in accidents is too great not to have operational controls in place before large blocks of tank cars and unit trains proliferate.”
But that’s just about public safety, not about promoting fossil fuel companies, a more central agenda for this White House. For the sake of realizing energy products from the United States and efficiency, Trump wrote that the country has to “reduce regulatory uncertainties.”
In support of the rule change, the Association of American Railroads said trains have fewer accidents than trucks and still can reach areas that pipelines cannot.
Local officials, including Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, and firefighters noted that there have been numerous accidents and explosions over the years and called for more study.
While noting that liquid natural gas is less flammable than crude oil, The Post noted several accidents. In 2013, in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, 47 people were killed when a runaway train exploded. Six months later, an oil train rammed into the derailed cars of a grain-carrying train in Casselton, N.D., unleashing exploding fireballs and forcing the evacuation of more than 1,400. The crews of the two trains were on different radio frequencies. On Feb. 6, a Canadian Pacific train carrying crude oil derailed and burst into flames outside Guernsey, Saskatchewan. A CSX train carrying ethanol ignited after it derailed in eastern Kentucky on Feb. 13.
Escaping vapor clouds can ignite and burn at extreme temperatures; the standard response is to let such fires to burn out because they are not extinguishable. LNG also can leak if extremely cold temperatures are not maintained inside the cars. The proposal includes designs for tank cars that are 50 years old.
The Post noted that one company given special permission to run a small trial program set specifics like speed limits and safety requirements that are not included in the expanded proposals. The NTSB also argued for a regulation requiring the placement of five cars without hazardous materials between the locomotive and LNG cars, for the safety of the train crews — though there apparently are only 67 tank cars that could carry LNG under the rule in the entire country. Results of a Federal Railroad Administration safety test of those cars is not expected until a year from now.
In Washington State, a project to supply natural gas to ships traveling from Puget Sound to Alaska, has drawn protest from the urban Puyallup Tribe in Tacoma because it runs up against their reservation. The tribe argues that there has not been negotiation about LNG or toxic byproducts — required consultation.
It is bad enough that this White House runs roughshod over rules. It could at least acknowledge that public safety is involved.
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