Senators Hill & Wolk Introduce Bill to Provide Emergency Response Funding for Accidents Involving Trains Carrying Crude Oil and Other Hazardous Materials
Oil Shipments by Train Soared More Than 500 Percent in California Last Year and are Projected to Grow Even More Swiftly, Fueled by a Boom in Production
State Senators Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, and Lois Wolk, D-Yolo, today introduced legislation that will levy a fee on railroad tank cars transporting crude oil and other hazardous materials in California to provide funding for developing and maintaining an emergency response system to deal with accidents and spills involving these materials. The fee will be paid by owners of oil and hazardous material that are being transported by tank car.
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California’s government agencies are not prepared for a boom in oil shipments by train that, fueled by imports from North Dakota and Canada, soared more than 500 percent to 6.3 million barrels last year and is expected to increase by up to 150 million barrels by 2016, according to a report released Tuesday by the state’s interagency Rail Safety Working Group.
About 10 percent of the oil will be headed to the five Bay Area refineries. The Valero Refining Co. of Benicia, for example, plans to run 100 train cars a day through Sacramento on the Union Pacific rail line starting early next year, according to published news reports.
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As recommended by the state report, Senate Bill 506 will provide funding to pay for increased emergency response to railroad accidents involving tank cars carrying oil and hazardous materials, including increased emergency response capabilities to explosions and fires. According to the report, numerous local emergency response offices lack adequate resources to respond to oil by rail accidents.
Under the legislation, railroad operators transporting hazardous materials by tank car in California will be required to register with the State Board of Equalization, which will collect the fees on a quarterly basis. The fee will be assessed based on the number of tank cars transporting hazardous materials. If a car carrying hazardous material originates from out of state, the fee will be applied when the car enters the state. If a car carrying hazardous material is loaded in California, the fee will be imposed when the material is loaded. The amount of the fee has not been set yet and will be determined through stakeholder meetings with the Legislature, the Administration, and industry stakeholders.
A shale boom in the United States has pushed oil production to the highest level in nearly three decades, bringing new hazards to California and other states as growing volumes of crude are transported by rail. According to federal statistics, more crude oil spilled in United States rail accidents in 2013 than had spilled from 1975 to 2012 combined.
Incidents in California involving oil by rail increased from three in 2011 to 25 in 2013 and 25 thus far this year, according to the state report.
Several destructive crude oil rail accidents have taken place in the United States and Canada in recent years, including the July 2013 derailment of 72 tanker cars loaded with two million gallons of flammable crude oil in Lac-Mégantic, Canada, that killed 47 people and caused more than $1 billion in damages.
In the United States, federal regulators imposed rules for crude-by-rail shipments following a series of derailments and explosions and issued an order last month that required railroads to report such traffic to state emergency responders.
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Nate Solov
Office of Senator Jerry Hill