Federal agency won't set deadline for tank-car rules

The federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration refused a request by lawmakers on Wednesday to set a deadline for new tank-car rules. Administrator Cynthia Quarterman testified that "tank car fixes weren’t 'a silver bullet,' and were only 'one piece of the mitigative puzzle' in making crude oil transportation safer," Curtis Tate reports for McClatchy Newspapers. "The rail industry petitioned the agency three years ago for a rule on tank cars, but the process didn’t begin until this past September and could take at least another year to finish." (Minneapolis Star-Tribune photo: An oil-train crash in December in North Dakota)

Quarterman's refusal came one day after the Department of Transportation issued an emergency order requiring oil-train shippers to check their crude for volatility. More crude oil was spilled in U.S. railway accidents in 2013 than in the previous 37 years, and an accident in July in Quebec that left 47 people dead.

"In addition to the safety of crude oil shipments on railroads, the hearing in the House of Representatives subcommittee that oversees railroads also examined recent commuter rail accidents and the problems the industry has meeting a December 2015 deadline to install a collision avoidance system," Tate writes. "Federal regulators and industry officials told lawmakers that commuter and freight railroads will not be able to install the system, called Positive Train Control, by the end of next year. Congress required the system in 2008 after 25 people died in a head-on collision between a commuter train and a freight train in southern California." (Read more)