Oil train regulation was back in the spotlight during a hearing before the Senate Energy Committee Thursday afternoon on a bill sponsored by Sen. Doug Ericksen, R-Ferndale.
Ericksen’s safety bill is competing with one requested by Gov. Jay Inslee and co-sponsored by Sens. Kevin Ranker, D-Orcas Island, and Christine Rolfes, D-Bainbridge Island. It’s been a politically charged topic among environmentalists over the past year, following a series of derailments and spills from oil trains in the U.S. and in Canada.
State Sen. Doug Ericksen, R-Ferndale.
An oil train derailed underneath a bridge in the Magnolia area of Seattle last summer but did not spill. The number of trains moving through Washington state has also surged in recent years, hitting 68 million barrels’ worth last year.
So, one of the dueling safety measures seems certain to pass the Legislature this session, but the question is which.
Each piece of legislation would levy a tax on barrels of oil brought in by train, and use that funding to pay for emergency response and planning efforts. It’s similar to the way oil companies fund response to a potential oil spill in a marine vessel in Washington waterways.
Both address safety concerns by having the state draw up response plans, issuing state grants to emergency responders. The federal government is undertaking its own initiatives to improve safety, by enhancing standards and investing money in infrastructure improvements.
Senate Democrats sent out a memo highlighting differences between their legislation and Ericksen’s, and environmentalists at Thursday’s hearing stressed that in arguing that his bill didn’t go far enough.
Sens. Kevin Ranker & Christine Rolfes
Specifically, they pointed out that their bill would require disclosure of when and what type of oil was being transported through their communities, and wanted to get the oil industry to take a share of planning and prevention.
Ericksen questioned the public disclosure requirements —who would have to be notified, when, and under what circumstances, given the frequency of the trains moving through a community. Frank Holmes of the Western States Petroleum Association also testified that rail and oil companies have worked collaboratively to improve safety, including requiring a double-hulled tanker car that would be tougher to breach during a spill.
“There are some solid, legitimate concerns about the safety of oil transportation by rail,” Ericksen said in a statement prior to the hearing. “That is what has brought this issue to public attention, and people are right to want to do something about it. But the truth is, the state has only limited authority to regulate rail shipments – that is a federal concern. What we can do on the state level is to be ready if trouble arrives by rail.”
April Putney, a legislative relations manager at King County, urged Ericksen to include more language in the bill on liability, ensuring the industries, not the government, would be on the hook financially for a spill.
“That is incredibly important and something that needs to be strengthened,” Putney said.
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