USA Today, 3/1:
Putting a brake to oil train derailments
Bill Loveless, Special for USA TODAY
The latest derailments of trains carrying crude oil in the U.S. and Canada are putting more pressure on government officials to end the fiery crashes.
In fact, Washington is moving closer to adopting proposals that would force improvements in the tank cars and other equipment used to haul oil as well as require new restrictions on operating speeds for those trains and new assessments of rail conditions. Ottawa has taken similar steps.
But a former Obama administration official who played a key role in writing the U.S. proposals says that for all the talk about increasing the thickness and durability of tank cars, the more vital consideration may be putting better brakes on those trains.
"The more I think about it, the more I think that the ECP brakes may be more important than the tank car itself, because it would stop the pileup of the cars when there's a derailment or when there's a need to brake in a very quick fashion," Cynthia Quarterman, who stepped down last year as the head of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), told me the other day.
Bill Loveless is a veteran energy journalist and television commentator in Washington. He is a former host of the TV program Platts Energy Week.
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