HB1449 faces key vote this week: voice your support!

Lawmakers aim to toughen laws on oil trains

By Jerry Cornfield, Herald writer     Daily Herald    3/29/15

OLYMPIA — State lawmakers are trying to reach agreement on tougher rules for the transportation of oil in Washington, including a requirement that rail carriers give local firefighters advance notice of when oil trains are coming.

Competing bills in the House and Senate could bring higher taxes for refiners, larger crew sizes on trains for railroads and more inspections of tracks and railroad crossings.Sponsors of the bills are trying to reconcile differences and avoid legislative derailment, but the chasm might be too great in the typically contentious final weeks of the legislative session.

“The public wants us to act,” said Rep. Jessyn Farrell, D-Seattle, prime sponsor of the House bill. “Our local officials want us to act. We've made some progress. I think both the Senate and the House want to get a bill passed.”....

.... two bills face key votes this week. On Monday, Ericksen's Senate Bill 5057 is to be considered by the House Environment Committee, and on Tuesday, Farrell's House Bill 1449 will be up for action before the Senate environment panel.

The House bill — which was originally requested by Gov. Jay Inslee — requires advance notice to the Department of Ecology of oil transfers by rail, including information about the volume, type and route. Such reports must be provided daily. Ericksen's bill requires notice once a week.

Farrell's legislation also requires railroads to show they can afford to pay for oil spill cleanup and allows for new rules requiring tug escorts of oil barges along the Columbia River and in Grays Harbor.

Farrell is proposing to double the oil barrel tax from 4 cents to 8 cents to cover the full cost of oil spill preparedness and response. Ericksen's bill keeps the tax unchanged.

Both bills would begin to apply the barrel tax on oil delivered by trains. Today it is only levied on marine tanker shipments. Farrell also wants it applied to material moved by pipeline.

Both bills would add rail inspectors at the state Utilities and Transportation Commission through increases in an existing railroad regulatory fee.

The required number of crew members on trains transporting oil and other hazardous materials could be contentious.

Today oil trains travel with two crew members. Under the Senate bill, a third person would be required on trains of 50 or fewer cars transporting hazardous materials, and a fourth person would be required for those with 51 or more cars. That could affect roughly 12 trains per week that travel through Snohomish County.

Ericksen opposes the provision, which was added by Senate colleagues over his objection. He said he'll try to get it removed. The House bill is silent on crew size, but Farrell said her colleagues support it..... more here

Keep the pressure on to pass HB 1449  and the Senate provision for larger crews.   Find your Senator here
-the form will let you also send your message to your Representatives. 

HB 1449 Oil Bill Passes House, Support SB 5087 in Senate NOW!

Oil Bill Passes House – what’s next?

Late last Thursday, the House passed the Oil Transportation Safety Now bill (HB 1449) with bipartisan support – a 60-38 vote.

This would not have happened without you. Thank you for all the emails, calls, letters, and in person visits – they made the difference. We are now one step closer to updating our laws to protect our communities and waterways. Will you take a minute to thank your Representatives if they voted in support?

But we’re not over the finish line yet.

Next, the Oil Transportation Safety Now bill moves to the Senate. To make progress there, it needs to be heard in their Energy, Environment & Telecommunications Committee.

Will you help make that happen? Email your Senator and tell them that a bill to protect our waterways and communities has received bipartisan support and deserves a hearing.

In the past few weeks, the threat that we face from oil trains and tankers has been more and more apparent – with derailments in Illinois, West Virginia, and Ontario. While this bill won’t prevent all accidents, it’s an essential first step forwards making us safer.

Tell the Senate it deserves a hearing.

Thank you!

Click here to support HB 1449/SB5087 
it's a good idea to add the SB5087 detail to the Subject line of the email to your Senator.

Other news:

Port of Longview commissioners reject Haven Energy lease on 3-0 vote

Port of Longview commissioners unanimously rejected the proposed Haven Energy propane export terminal Tuesday morning, voicing concerns about the safety and the true economic impact of the $300 million project.

WA Senate passes Ericksen's weak Oil train bill- taxpayers left on the hook

Senate passes oil train safety bill

03/09/2015    By DERRICK NUNNALLY     Fire Engineering

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — The state Senate passed a measure Monday night to improve the safety of oil transportation, one of two competing bills that deal with the increasing shipments of crude oil through the state.

Senate Bill 5057, sponsored by Republican Sen. Doug Ericksen of Ferndale, passed 26-23 after extended debate. The House passed a competing bill last week....

...It differs from House Bill 1449, which passed last week, because it doesn't cover oil shipped by pipeline and lacks requirements that railroads and others show they can pay to clean up a spill...

...Votes on the Senate bill fell largely along party caucus lines after Senate Democrats, who are in the minority in the chamber, attempted a series of amendments to expand the bill's safety protocols to pipelines and oil moved by water. Ericksen opposed each, saying the bill should focus on oil trains.
Only one passed: a proposal by Sen. Steve Conway, D-Tacoma, to set minimum staffing requirements aboard oil trains.

"First responder personnel are not qualified to uncouple rail cars," Conway said.

Ericksen and Sen. Kevin Ranker, D-Orcas Island, argued during and after the debate over whether the bill ensured the public would not bear the brunt of paying to clean up oil spills. Ericksen said oil-transporting companies have to bear the liability. Ranker, whose amendment to raise the cleanup fund's 4 cents per barrel tax on shipments to 6.5 cents failed, said oil companies will escape much of the culpability.

"If there's a spill, who's going to pay for it?" Ranker asked. "The taxpayers."  
read entire article here

Tar Sands by Rail Disasters: The Latest Wave in the Bomb Train Assault

DeSmogBlog    Justin Mikulka    03/09/15

With the first crash and explosion of a unit train of tar sands oil in Canada in February, we learned that the conventional wisdom among people covering the oil-by-rail industry regarding the flammability of tar sands oil has been dead wrong. A second derailment and explosion on March 7th involved synbit, which is a form of bitumen diluted with synthetic crude oil.

While there are many examples of this mischaracterization of the dangers of moving tar sands by rail that can be found in the press, here at DeSmogBlog we didn’t have to look far. In an article last year about how to make Bakken crude less dangerous we wrote that the government had plans to allow tar sands oil to be transported in the unsafe DOT-111 rail tank cars “because it is not explosive.”

While raw bitumen from the Alberta tar sands is not volatile or highly flammable, when it is diluted with natural gas condensate to form a mixture known as dilbit, which is typically done to make it easier to transport, it appears that it can be as dangerous as the Bakken crude that has now been proven to be highly flammable and explosive in multiple train derailments.

An article in Railway Age pointing out the implications of the tar-sands-by-rail accident had the ominous title “Why bitumen isn’t necessarily safer than Bakken” and concluded with the statement that “Should TSB [Transportation Safety Board] conclude that dilbit has a volatility similar to Bakken crude, as the Alberta research suggests, the hazmat classification of crude oil could be in question.”....    more here

Links:

Fiery Rail Spills Puts Safety Focus on Cutting Oil’s Volatility   -Bloomberg

 

Crude oil spilled in CN derailment will impact ecosystems for long time, activists say - As fires are extinguished at site of Gogama, Ont., accident, environmentalists worry that toxins will linger.

EPA works to prevent contamination of oil from train derailment into Mississippi River

Wednesday updates

                              h/t oiltransportationcampaign

Hearing on Inslee plan to charge big polluters draws divided crowd

By Jim Brunner Seattle Times political reporter

OLYMPIA — Gov. Jay Inslee’s sweeping climate-change bill drew hundreds to a packed public hearing Tuesday, putting the divided world view of supporters and opponents on full display throughout the Capitol.

An air of urgency filled environmentalists who sang songs and waved signs at passing lawmakers, and erected a display of a burning planet.....

North Dakota: oil producers aim to cut radioactive waste bills

via Yahoo News

Not the Radioactive waste, mind you, just the cost of dealing with it.

By Ernest Scheyder

WILLISTON, N.D. (Reuters) - North Dakota's oil industry is pushing to change the state's radioactive waste disposal laws as part of a broad effort to conserve cash as oil prices tumble.

The waste, which becomes slightly radioactive as part of the hydraulic fracturing process that churns up isotopes locked underground, must be trucked out of state.

That's because rules prohibit North Dakota landfills from accepting anything but miniscule amounts of radiation.....

Children Given Lifelong Ban on Talking About Fracking

Two Pennsylvanian children will live their lives under a gag order imposed under a $750,000 settlement.

By Suzanne Goldenberg     The Guardian   Alternet      January 26, 2015

Two young children in Pennsylvania were banned from talking about fracking for the rest of their lives under a gag order imposed under a settlement reached by their parents with a leading oil and gas company.

The sweeping gag order was imposed under a $750,000 settlement between the Hallowich family and Range Resources Corp, a leading oil and gas driller. It provoked outrage on Monday among environmental campaigners and free speech advocates.

The settlement, reached in 2011 but unsealed only last week, barred the Hallowichs' son and daughter, who were then aged 10 and seven, from ever discussing fracking or the Marcellus Shale, a leading producer in America's shale gas boom.

The Hallowich family had earlier accused oil and gas companies of destroying their 10-acre farm in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania and putting their children's health in danger. Their property was adjacent to major industrial operations: four gas wells, gas compressor stations, and a waste water pond, which the Hallowich family said contaminated their water supply and caused burning eyes, sore throats and headaches.

Gag orders – on adults – are typical in settlements reached between oil and gas operators and residents in the heart of shale gas boom in Pennsylvania. But the company lawyer's insistence on extending the lifetime gag order to the Hallowichs' children gave even the judge pause, according to the court documents.

The family gag order was a condition of the settlement. The couple told the court they agreed because they wanted to move to a new home away from the gas fields, and to raise their children in a safer environment. "We need to get the children out of there for their health and safety," the children's mother, Stephanie Hallowich, told the court.....   more here

November WA Oil Spill Unreported for a Month

BNSF train in Plains, Montana. (Photo: SNEHIT/Shutterstock)

November WA Oil Spill Unreported for a Month

By Curtis Tate      McClatchy DC    January 26, 2015

State and federal officials are investigating an oil spill from a railroad tank car at Washington state’s largest refinery last November, but key agencies were kept in the dark about it for at least a month.

The delayed notification of the spill highlights gaps in communication and enforcement as more crude oil shipments travel by rail.....

....Neither the railroad, nor the third-party company that unloaded the oil at the terminal, however, could determine where the missing oil had spilled, making it likely that it had leaked somewhere along the train’s 1,200-mile path between the loading terminal in Dore, N.D., and the refinery, near Ferndale, Wash.

The oil train route to Northwest refineries passes through national parks, along rivers and through the region’s population centers.....

.....State law requires railroads to report any hazardous materials release to the state emergency operations center within 30 minutes of learning of the incident. The center’s 24-hour duty officer shares spill information with all levels of government. Karina Shagren, a spokeswoman for the state Emergency Management Division, said the department has no record of anyone calling to report an oil spill from a rail car at the refinery in November.....   more here

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/01/26/254434/washington-state-officials-unaware.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/01/26/254434/washington-state-officials-unaware.html#storylink=cpy

Links:

New York may raise oil taxes-   New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is proposing to raise taxes on both imported oil and crude passing through the state, a move that could have a major impact on crude-by-rail shipments... crude shipped through New York — irrespective of whether it stays in the state or is transferred to another — will be assessed the same fees as imports.

Derailment spills hazardous chemicals in SC   Two people have been sent to the hospital with

injuries after the train derailed in Martin, South Carolina in what's now being considered an active scene. Officials confirm there was a hazardous chemical spilled, but it is now contained. A hazmat team is on-site.