CN tops BNSF; Portland oks Propane

Tear up the non-disclosure agreements for Bakken crude

Tue, 2014-09-02  Government Security News

Editor’s note: In this article Denise Rucker Krepp, attorney, transportation and energy consultant, former special counsel to DHS and the U.S. Congress, and author of the 9/11 Rail provisions, gives state and local officials advice regarding non-disclosure agreements (NDA) they signed with railroad companies regarding transportation of Bakker crude oil: Tear them up. They’re against the law, she writes.

This summer, state and local officials in Pennsylvania, New York, and Washington state were asked to sign NDAs in order to receive information about the transport of Bakken crude through their jurisdiction. The NDAs violate the rail security mandates established in the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act. State and local officials who have signed these agreements should tear them up and tell the rail carriers to reread the 2007 law.......
read more here

Gates-backed CN pulls ahead while Buffett’s BNSF falters

09/02/14    Globe and Mail 

BNSF Railway Co., owned by Mr. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., is struggling. North America’s biggest railway by sales is grappling with slow traffic and is being scrutinized by U.S. regulators for poor service, spurring concern that it risks a permanent loss of some customers...... read more here

Safety Board Final Report n Lac Mégantic Disaster Is Sharply Critical of Railway Regulation, but Federal Government Unmoved

03 September 2014 09:06 By Roger Annis, Vancouver Observer | Op-Ed
 
Canada's Transportation Safety Board issued a 181-page report on August 19 detailing the breakdown in application and enforcement of federal rail safety regulations that caused the deaths of 47 people in the oil train disaster in Lac Mégantic, Quebec on July 6, 2013. (Read the 12-page executive summary here.)

The TSB report identified 18 distinct causes and contributing factors in which safety procedures and regulations failed or were not applied......

....The report is sharply critical of Transport Canada for failing to oversee the rail safety regime that it has modified and slackened over the years at the behest of successive federal governments. But Transport Minister Lisa Raitt has responded to the report by saying that the regulations in place are just fine and all that is needed to avoid more oil rail disasters is more rigorous application of the existing regulations.     read more here

Port of Portland reaches deal on terminal to store Canadian propane before shipment to Asia

By GOSIA WOZNIACKA  Associated Press  September 02, 2014 

PORTLAND, Oregon — The Port of Portland said Tuesday it has reached an agreement with a company that wants to build a terminal to temporarily house propane imported by rail from Canada then exported by ship to Asia.

The port said the Pembina Pipeline Corp. terminal could go online in 2018 and handle 37,000 barrels a day of propane. Its cost is estimated at more than $500 million in private investments.....

....In a statement, Portland port Executive Director Bill Wyatt said it has been choosy about such deals, "saying 'no' to coal and 'not now' to crude by rail."

He called propane a clean and safe alternative fuel and said Pembina is an experienced company committed to safety......  read more here