Economy

Wednesday, April 29, 2015
Written by David Thomas, Contributing Editor

How crude oil sloshing inside moving tank cars affects train stability was under close scrutiny by the Federal Railroad Administration, the regulator’s Acting Administrator told reporters back on March 13. That was after a string of mid-winter oil train disasters exposed the prevailing focus on tank car thickness to be essentially pointless in the quest to prevent oil train derailments and explosions. ... Sarah Feinberg had been appointed in January by President Obama to shake up an agency paralyzed by its own procedures and deservedly reputed for an imperious attitude towards the public’s right to know. So, while skepticism about her knowledge of the railroad business greeted Feinberg’s interim appointment, there was justifiable expectation among we ink-stained wretches that the slick public relations professional would at least fix her agency’s Orwellian-titled “office of communications.”
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During an appearance before a Senate committee on April 28, U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz dropped what should have been a media bombshell by revealing that a bi-departmental investigation with the U.S. Department of Transportation is being launched into how differing degrees of volatility affect the safe transportation of crude oil by rail. ... Fortunately, McClatchy Newspapers’ Curtis Tate was on hand to report the start of this next step in the reform of moving crude oil by rail. Curiously, McClatchy remains alone in the Google News cull of stories about crude-by-rail. The Department of Energy itself did not bother to emit a news release about its chief’s portentous remark and ignored Railway Age’s request for elucidation. Perhaps it hopes the American Petroleum Institute will not notice.

Even as the White House Office of Management and Budget is on the cusp of decreeing final new regulations for tank car design and oil train operations, it is becoming self-evident to many outside of the oil business that the nuisance of exploding cargo will not be solved before crude is de-weaponized at the well site by cooking off contaminating volatile gases.

The Energy Secretary’s low-key announcement is the beginning of another interminable round of reports and refutations that will safely ensure the oil business is not inconvenienced for years to come. ... Despairingly, Moniz said the joint study with the USDOT will take 24 months. That’s two months longer than the interval since the continuing catastrophe of exploding crude started at Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, on July 6, 2013. How many oil trains will derail and explode over the course of the next two years is impossible to predict. The safe guess is more than none.