Feds propose new oil train rules

Stronger tanker cars, slower speeds and keeping state emergency personnel informed — those are the key elements in the U.S. Department of Transportation’s proposed rules for trains hauling crude oil.

The 200-page draft rules were released July 23 in response to number of highly publicized fiery explosions caused when tanker cars hauling oil from the Bakken region of Montana and North Dakota derailed over the past year.

Crude oil shipments by train in the U.S. has increased from several thousand tank cars about a decade ago to 434,000 tank cars last year. The Bakken oil field now produces more than 1 million barrels of oil per day, and production is expected to increase.

In a report released with the proposed rules, DOT concluded that Bakken oil is more volatile than typical for light, sweet crude oils, a point strongly challenged by the oil industry.

“The best science and data do not support recent speculation that crude oil from the Bakken presents greater than normal transportation risks,” American Petroleum Institute president and CEO Jack Gerard said. “DOT needs to get this right and make sure its regulations are grounded in facts and sound science, not speculation.”

Oil trains hauled by BNSF Railway are a common sight on the mail line that runs across the Hi-Line, over Marias Pass, down the mountain canyon along the Middle Fork of the Flathead River between Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness, and through the towns of Columbia Falls and Whitefish.

While an oil train has not derailed in Northwest Montana, heavy 110-car long grain trains have derailed several times on the winding track in the canyon. A derailed grain train was blamed for the fiery explosion in Casselton, N.D. last December.

Nobody was hurt in that accident, but 47 people were killed when a 74-car oil train derailed in Lac Megantic, Quebec, on July 6, 2013. The burning Bakken oil destroyed more than 30 buildings in the small town.

DOT’s latest proposed rules would require that older DOT-111 tanker cars commonly in use must be retrofitted or replaced within two to five years to make them less likely to rupture in a derailment.

One option is to replace the DOT-111s with CPC-1232 models that railroad, oil and ethanol shippers voluntarily agreed to use in 2011. The CPC-1232 tanker cars have also ruptured in recent derailments, but the shippers have spent billions of dollars already on the new design with the expectation they would last several decades.

The proposed rules also would require that trains hauling the older design tanker cars or which did not have a new braking system would have to slow down to 30 or 40 mph in urban areas. Trains hauling the newer tank cars and with the new braking system could travel at 50 mph.

Railroad companies had already agreed to slow oil trains down to 40 mph in urban areas. The BNSF main line along the northern tier of Montana is mostly outside of urban areas, including in the canyon along the Middle Fork of the Flathead River.

The proposed rules also would establish a new category of trains with tougher standards. Any train with 20 or more cars hauling crude oil or ethanol would fall into the “high-hazard flammable train” category. Oil trains typically have 100 or more cars and carry 3 million gallons of oil.

The proposed rules also would codify an existing DOT order that requires railroad companies to keep state emergency personnel informed about shipments of Bakken oil through their area.

BNSF Railway and Union Pacific Railroad were initially reluctant to provide the information, and asked states not to release the information to the public. Gov. Steve Bullock refused, citing the state’s open records law.

According to data BNSF released June 25, more than a dozen trains carrying Bakken oil travel across Montana each week en route to out-of-state refineries. Nationwide, crude oil shipments  topped 110,000 tanker cars in the first quarter of 2014 — the highest volume ever moved by rail. Oil from the Bakken travels by train on average about 1,600 miles to its destination.