National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017

Floor Speech

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Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I rise with my friend and colleague Senator Wyden to draw attention to the dangerous oil train derailment that occurred in Oregon last Friday and the urgency to protect communities around our Nation with stronger safety regulations for these rolling explosion hazards.

The folks in the Columbia Gorge have experienced a proliferation of trains carrying coal and carrying oil. They have been concerned about the length of the trains and how these trains roll through, dividing their communities and the challenges they have. There is one concern they have above everything else; that is, that a train full of explosive Bakken crude would derail in their community. That happened last Friday.

It is the very scenario communities have dreaded. This oil train was traveling through the Cascade Mountains along the Columbia Gorge on its way to Tacoma, WA, with 97 cars loaded with flammable, explosive Bakken crude. Sixteen tank cars went off the tracks. One car ruptured, and when it ruptured, it spewed oil. The oil created an inferno, and the inferno started to heat up the adjacent cars. The adjacent cars had pressure relief valves that as they got hot, started spewing oil out of these pressure relief valves, spreading the fire to three cars. This happened near the town of Mosier, OR, which is just 70 miles east of Portland.

We were fortunate. We thank our lucky stars no one was injured in the incident, but it could have been different, as my colleague from Oregon pointed out. The proximity of Mosier resulted in an evacuation of over 100 nearby residents and the nearby grade school with over 200 children. An air quality warning occurred for vulnerable residents from the thick plumes of black smoke. We were fortunate, and we are happy that no human life was taken and no injury occurred.

Let's take a look at what that inferno looked like in this photo. We can see the massive plume of burning Bakken crude rising into the air. We see here the fire in the adjacent cars. We see the proximity to the Columbia River. There could have been a massive release of oil into the Columbia River as well. Again, we were fortunate in this regard. The Columbia Gorge is a very special place, but as its narrow channel through the Cascade Mountain occurs, these trains run through the middle of virtually every community along the way. They represent a rolling time bomb. Citizens are right to have grave concerns.

I don't think the citizens along the Columbia Gorge are mollified by thinking, well, it could have been worse; we were fortunate this time. Instead, what the citizens of Mosier are thinking and citizens in communities all along the gorge are thinking is, our concerns about these rolling explosion hazards are confirmed, and we need to take serious measures so that one of these trains does not blow up in our community in the future.

Now there are inspections that take place. The track was reportedly inspected on May 31. A track detector vehicle used laser and other technology to inspect the track within the last 30 days.

But what happened? Why did this occur along this stretch of track? It is reported that a bolt or multiple bolts sheared. Why did they shear? Was it temperature differentials between day and night in our unusually warm spring? Was it because of the weight of these trains rolling through? Was it the volume of the traffic? Was it the speed they were traveling?

We have to understand every detail so that we respond and make sure this does not happen again. That is why it is so disturbing that the National Transportation Safety Board declined to investigate. In its mission, the NTSB is supposed to investigate accidents that result in the ``release of hazardous materials''--well, that certainly was the case--and that ``involve problems of a recurring nature''.

There have been recurring derailments that involve significant property damage. There was significant damage here. This derailment sent oil into Mosier's wastewater treatment plant. The plant has been closed down, a major challenge for the city to cope with. There has even been a pause in the drinking water because of the modest oil sheen in the river. It was uncertain where it was coming from and whether it would get into the intake for the drinking water.

So let's hereafter not have a situation where there is a significant crash and we don't have the investigation to learn everything about it so we can apply those lessons into the future.

Senator Wyden has been leading the charge to make sure that we understand accidents, that we have the right set of precautions in place: braking standards on the brakes and speed standards on the tracks and upgraded railroad tanker cars that are far less likely to rupture. I thank him for his leadership on this. I am a full-square partner in this effort.

The tank car that ruptured was not one that met the new standards. It was what was referred to by the president of Union Pacific as kind of a ``medium safety''--not the worst car, not the oldest car. It did have some upgrades on it but certainly not the new cars that we have been setting and aspiring to have; that is, a stronger car with more protections, minimizing the chance of a rupture.

This is an issue we must take on seriously and urgently. Let's recognize that it is one accident after another. In July 2013, a runaway Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway train spilled oil and caught fire inside the town of Lac-Megantic in Quebec. Forty-seven people were killed. Thirty buildings burned in the town center.

In December of that year, a fire engulfed tank cars loaded with oil on a Burlington Northern Santa Fe train after a collision about a mile from Casselton, ND. Two thousand residents were evacuated as emergency responders struggled with the intense fire.

In January 2014, a 122-car Canadian National Railway train derailed in New Brunswick, Canada. Three cars containing propane and one car containing crude from western Canada exploded after the derailment, creating intense fires that burned for days.

In April of that year, 15 cars of a crude oil train derailed in Lynchburg, VA, near a railside eatery and a pedestrian waterfront, sending flames and black smoke into the air. Thirty thousand gallons of oil spilled into the James River.

The list goes on. In February of 2015----

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Mr. MERKLEY. I would be honored to yield for your unanimous consent proposal.

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Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, in February of 2015, on Valentine's Day, a 100-car Canadian National Railway train hauling crude oil and petroleum distillates derailed in Ontario, Canada. The blaze burned for days.

Two days later, a 109-car CSX oil train derailed and caught fire near Mount Carbon, WV, leaking oil into a Kanawha River tributary and burning a house to its foundation. The blaze burned for weeks.

In November of last year, a dozen cars loaded with crude oil derailed from a Canadian Pacific Railway train, causing the evacuation of dozens of homes near Watertown, WI.

Let's take a look at this chart. In all, there have been 32 crashes involving oil trains since 2013. So in less than 4 years, there have been 32 crashes. I just highlighted a few of them. We see a massive increase of crude oil transported by rail. Therefore, there is a corresponding concern because of the explosive nature of this product and the derailments resulting in explosions and infernos.

Senator Wyden and I have been calling for reform. We are going to keep pressing. We need better information for first responders on the scheduling of these trains. We need better knowledge of where the foam that can be used to respond is stored. We need more foam stored in more places. We need faster implementation of the brake standards and faster implementation of the speed standards and faster implementation of the railcar tanker standards.

But we have to understand what happened in every one of these wrecks. Let's take the same diligence to this that we take to aviation. We study every plane crash to understand what went wrong so we can take these lessons and diminish the odds of it happening again. The result is, we have incredibly safe aviation. Shouldn't we have the same standards when it applies to transportation across America with trains full of explosive oil running through the middle of our towns, not just in Oregon but all across this country? Haven't we learned in crash after crash after crash that these are not one-time isolated incidents, but something that happens with considerable regularity? Can't we do more?

Yes, we can. Yesterday, when I talked to the president of Union Pacific, I told him we were going to call for a moratorium, and Senator Wyden and Governor Brown and Representatives Blumenauer and Bonamici have joined in this effort. He heard our voice. He understands the challenge to these communities and the concerns that until the mess is cleaned up and until we understand and address the fundamental problems that contributed to this crash, no more oil should roll through the Columbia Gorge.

That is what we have called for. That is what we are going to keep persisting in. Let's stop this process of having oil train crash after oil train crash, explosion after explosion, inferno after inferno. The damage has gone up dramatically as the transportation of this oil has gone up dramatically. Incidents resulted in $30 million in damage last year, up from one-fourth of that the previous year.

So let's act. Let's act aggressively. Let's act quickly. Senator Wyden's act would take us a powerful stride in the right direction.

Let's not look to our citizens and towns with rail tracks across this country and simply shrug our shoulders. Instead, let's say we know we have a major problem and we are going to be diligent and aggressive in solving it.

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