Senators urge access to detailed oil train information

A half dozen senators have asked the Obama administration to issue an emergency order to improve access to information for first responders to oil train derailments.    A half-dozen senators have asked the Obama administration to issue an emergency order to improve access to information for first responders to oil-train derailments.
   The request by the lawmakers was announced Wednesday, the same day as a derailment of an oil train in Wells County, North Dakota, near the small town of Heimdal. It’s the fifth oil-train derailment in North America since early February. 
   The Department of Transportation announced new regulations on May 1 governing the safety of trains hauling flammable materials such as crude oil. Under the new rules, railroads are required to share information on the shipment of crude oil with emergency responders, but the information could be exempt from public disclosure under state and federal open-records laws.
   The senators wrote in a letter to Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx the onus to provide oil-train information should be on “the railroads and not communities” and they encouraged “public availability of broader crude-by-rail data on movements and routes.”
   “The final rule constitutes a setback on disclosure requirements that could hamper our first responders and negatively impact the safety of our communities,” the letter warned.
   The letter was signed by Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.; Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.; Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.; Robert P. Casey Jr., D-Pa.; Richard Durbin, D-Ill.; Al Franken, D-Minn.; Patty Murray, D-Wash.; and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. 
   In March, Sens. Baldwin, Cantwell, and Murray, along with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., introduced legislation that would set new safety standards for trains transporting crude oil. The 2015 Crude-By-Rail Safety Act requires the DOT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to draft new regulations to mitigate the volatility of gases in crude oil shipped via tank car and immediately halt the use of older-model tank cars that have been shown to be at high risk for puncturing and catching fire in derailments.