White House mulled, then balked at curbing explosive gas on oil trains

Continental Energy

05/03/2015 15:26

By Patrick Rucker 
    WASHINGTON, March 5 (Reuters) - The Obama administration 
weighed national standards to control explosive gas in oil 
trains last year but rejected the move, deciding instead to 
leave new rules to North Dakota alone. 
    Current and former administration officials told Reuters 
that they were unsure of federal jurisdiction to force the 
energy industry to drain volatile gas from crude oil originating 
in North Dakota's fields. 
    Instead, they opted to back North Dakota's effort to remove 
the cocktail of explosive gas - known in the industry as 'light 
ends' - and rely on the state to contain the risk. 
    North Dakota's regulations come into force next month. 
    The administration's internal debate shows that concern 
about the risks associated with oil trains reached the upper 
level of the White House. But the administration balked at 
addressing the problem in new regulations governing crude oil 
trains that it is preparing to introduce this spring. 
    A growing number of safety advocates say those rules are 
insufficient to regulate a product that is hauled thousands of 
miles of track and across many state lines. 
    "These trains are going all across the country so it 
absolutely has to be the feds who are in charge," said Karen 
Darch, mayor of Barrington, Illinois, where several oil and 
ethanol trains pass through her town weekly. 
    Last September, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx took 
his concerns about Bakken fuel to the White House and sought 
advice on what to do about the danger of light ends, according 
to sources familiar with the meeting. 
    By then, Foxx had spent more than twelve months weighing 
safety measures that would prevent oil train derailments from 
becoming fiery disasters like the 2013 Lac Megantic tragedy in 
Canada in which 47 people were killed by a runaway Bakken train 
delivery. 
    The Transportation Department was warning that Bakken fuel 
was uncommonly volatile and explosion-prone. Foxx's agency 
conceived an oil train safety plan in July with an array of 
measures that aimed to make sure oil train cargo moved safely on 
the tracks. 
    Tankers would have toughened shells. Oil train deliveries 
would slow down. Advanced braking systems would be adopted. 
    But the rule would do nothing to limit volatile gas. 
    Foxx brought his concerns about the unresolved issue of 
dangerous gas, commonly measured as vapor pressure, and his 
agency's limited power to curtail the problem to President 
Barack Obama's chief of staff, Denis McDonough. The 
administration decided to just let the existing oil train safety 
plan take root. 
    "The department had already identified issues with the 
characteristics of the crude oil, including vapor pressure, and 
had developed potential strategies related to the overall 
improvement and safety of the transport of the product and how 
the industry could treat it," a White House official told 
Reuters. 
    But ultimately, the administration decided to support North 
Dakota's plan to limit vapor pressure - a measure that was just 
taking shape at the time the officials met. 
    "Following the meeting, the Department of Transportation 
supported North Dakota on treatment of crude oil in the field," 
the White House official said. 
    That approach is not good enough for many critics. 
    New York Senator Charles Schumer warned this week that oil 
train "disasters" could continue "until the stability of the 
crude being loaded into the tank cars themselves is improved." 
    Of the roughly 1.2 million barrels of crude oil produced in 
North Dakota daily, more than 60 percent of that fuel reaches 
refineries by rail, typically in 100-tanker unit trains that can 
stretch a mile long. 
    A large share of that fuel moves through New York on the way 
to refineries in the mid-Atlantic. 
    In a letter to Secretary Foxx and Energy Secretary Ernest 
Moniz, Schumer encouraged the officials "to work together to 
develop new regulations that would require the stabilization of 
crude oil prior to shipment." 
    An Energy Department official said the agency is in the 
early stages of developing a report on Bakken crude dangers that 
"may be of use to the Department of Transportation, which has 
regulatory authority over the transport of crude oil." 
 
 (Reporting By Patrick Rucker; Additional reporting by Ernest 
Scheyder; Editing by Nick Zieminski) 
 ((patrick.rucker@thomsonreuters.com; +202 354 5858; Reuters 
Messaging: patrick.rucker.reuters.com@reuters.net)) 
 
Keywords: USA TRAIN/VAPORS