CBS:Trainderailmenthighlightsoil-transportationissues posted

CBS: Train derailment highlights oil-transportation issues

posted at 10:01 am on May 1, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

A train derailment in Lynchburg, Virginia dumped as much as 50,000 gallons of oil, the latest such rail disaster in a recent series. Thus far, the spill doesn’t pose a safety issue for local water use, as the river into which the rail cars tumbled is only used as a drought resource. CBS News raises the point that the safety of oil transport by rail has become a serious problem, and that the federal government has thus far acted slowly to respond to it:

Concern about the safety of oil trains was heightened last July when runaway oil train derailed and exploded in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, near the Maine border. Forty-seven people died and 30 buildings were incinerated. Canadian investigators said the combustibility of the 1.3 million gallons of light, sweet Bakken crude released in Lac-Megantic was comparable to gasoline.

“This is another national wake-up call,” said Jim Hall, a former NTSB chairman said of the Lynchburg crash. “We have these oil trains moving all across the United States through communities and the growth and distribution of this has all occurred, unfortunately, while the federal regulators have been asleep.”

“This is just an area in which the federal rulemaking process is too slow to protect the American people,” he said.

There have been eight significant oil train accidents in the U.S. and Canada in the past year involving trains hauling crude oil, including several that resulted in spectacular fires, according to the safety board.

This has become an issue, although more in the Midwest and Plains states. The product of the Bakken field has to get shipped by rail to refineries in the South, which has also involved a series of rail accidents.  The federal government and the railroad industry reached an accord on new voluntary measures to reduce oil-related rail accidents in February, but these either didn’t get implemented in time, or don’t address the cause of the Lynchburg failure (which may have been storm-weakened soil under the tracks).

There are really only two ways to address oil-transport issues. Either we need to build new refineries closer to production, or we need pipelines rather than rail for transport. The US has barely budged on new refineries over the last 30-plus years, and the regulatory hurdles for building new plants — even though demand would support it — makes this option nearly impossible. That leaves us with pipelines, and this administration has used the regulatory hurdles on the Keystone XL pipeline to indefinitely stall the project. They may kill it to appease their allies in the environmental movement.

That won’t stop us from producing and moving oil, however, even if that’s the real goal of the environmentalists blocking refinery and pipeline projects. It just means that we’ll continue to do so in the least-safe manner.

Tags: derailments, environmentalism, Keystone XL Pipeline, oil production, refineries

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Source from: hotair

Video:Let’sbuildKeystone,says…EdSchultz

Video: Let’s build Keystone, says … Ed Schultz

posted at 10:41 am on February 4, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

If you’re inclined to be surprised by this, think again. Unions want the Keystone XL pipeline to be built, as it will employ thousands of dues-paying members for years on the project, and they need the private-sector jobs just as much as the rest of the country does, if not more. Ed Schultz frames this endorsement as a safety issue — and it is — but you can bet your bottom dollar that Ed’s bottom dollar is talking here:

Based on safety I think the President should give this project the stamp of approval. Environmental groups obviously think differently. And so do the majority of people on the left. But this newsflash: We’re not getting out of the oil business in America. It runs our economy. Do we have climate change? Yes we do. But the construction of this pipeline does not mean we are going to consume more as a country.

I’m looking at it at from a safety aspect. I don’t explosions in small towns or any towns, or any kind of train derailment carrying oil, where there are fewer federal inspectors than ever before, and also the fact that these railcars are old and the infrastructure hasn’t been upgraded. So a brand-new pipeline, to me, makes sense.

On the safety issue, the State Department agrees that Keystone will save six lives a year, based on derailment issues on trains that now have to transport crude from the Bakken formation:

Although it excluded the runaway oil train derailment that killed 47 people in Lac Megantic, Quebec, last summer, the tragedy that first shone a critical light on the rapidly expanding trend in shipping crude by rail, the findings highlight the risks or railway transport versus pipes.

Shipping another 830,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude “would result in an estimated 49 additional injuries and six additional fatalities for the No Action rail scenarios compared to one additional injury and no fatalities” per year if Keystone XL is built, according to the report.

Keystone XL would carry 830,000 bpd from Alberta’s oil sands U.S. refiners, but has been awaiting a presidential permit for more than five years. The “No Action” options refer to the likely alternative outcomes if Obama rejects the permit or the project is not built for some other reason.

The report also showed that carrying crude by rail, instead of by pipeline, was likely to result in a higher number of oil spills and a larger amount of leakage over time.

 

Don’t expect the Schultz endorsement to make this a no-brainer for the White House, though, even with the backing of the unions. The environmental-activist base promises to make this a “sit on our hands” issue in the midterms if Obama moves forward with it — and maybe worse:

But critics say approval of the project could sow liberal discontent and hurt Democratic chances in 2014 — including a host of contests that will likely decide who controls the Senate during the final years of the Obama White House.

“It is very likely that there will be negative consequences for Democrats if Keystone were approved,” said Kate Colarulli, the associate director for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Oil campaign. “This is a tremendous opportunity to protect the climate and build the Democratic base if Obama rejects Keystone XL.”

Green groups are promising acts of “civil disobedience,” if Obama signs off on the project and contend Keystone’s approval could torpedo the president’s broader climate change agenda.

The project is a no-brainer, except for the politics within the Democratic Party. The White House may decide that punting this to 2015 is their best option.

Tags: 2014 election, derailments, Ed Schultz, environmentalism, Keystone XL Pipeline, unions

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Source from: hotair