Court strikes down federal rule that would have allowed U.S. “bomb trains”

January 17, 2025

Court strikes down federal rule that would have allowed U.S. "bomb trains"

Major rail car explosion risk now averted throughout American communities

Contacts

Bradley Marshall, Earthjustice, (845) 239-2355 bmarshalll@earthjustice.org

Emily Jeffers, Center for Biological Diversity, (510) 844-7109 [email protected]

Lauren Otero, Clean Air Council, (610) 585-1333 [email protected]

Shannon Van Hoesen, Sierra Club, (202) 604-2464 [email protected]

Tracy Carluccio, Delaware Riverkeeper Network, (215) 692 -2329 [email protected]

Melissa Marshall, Mountain Watershed Association, (202) 302-2025 [email protected]

Washington, D.C. -

A federal court today struck down a 2019 rule that would have allowed trains to travel the country filled with an unprecedented amount of explosive liquefied natural gas.

The liquefied natural gas from just one rail tank car - without even considering a whole train - could be enough to destroy a city.

"We're pleased that the court saw the danger this rule posed to our nation's communities," said Earthjustice attorney Bradley Marshall. "As we pointed out, it would only take 22 tank cars to hold the equivalent energy of the Hiroshima bomb."

The federal effort to cut critical safeguards for liquefied natural gas started on April 10, 2019, when President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to initiate rulemaking to allow liquefied natural gas transport by rail. The rule - now vacated - would have allowed liquefied natural gas transport by rail in tanker cars that cannot withstand high-speed impacts. These rail cars are unlikely to survive an impact at even 20 miles per hour, and yet the rule imposed no mandatory speed limits.

Earthjustice filed a legal challenge in 2020 to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration's rule on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity, the Clean Air Council, the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, the Environmental Confederation of Southwest Florida, the Mountain Watershed Association, and the Sierra Club. Today, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in favor of the groups.

Under longstanding federal law, it's considered too dangerous to carry liquefied natural gas in tank cars. It can only be transported by truck and - with special approval by the Federal Railroad Administration - by rail in approved United Nations portable tanks. UN portable tanks are relatively small tanks that can be mounted on top of semi-truck trailer beds or on railcars.

If it escapes containment, liquefied natural gas rapidly expands by 600 times its volume to become a highly flammable gas - which can turn a group of loaded railcars into a "bomb train." The danger is compounded because the newly evaporated natural gas is denser than air until it warms sufficiently. In one of the worst examples of the danger, 131 people were killed and a square mile of Cleveland, Ohio, was destroyed when liquefied natural gas escaped from a tank farm and spread through the city's sewer system before igniting in 1944.

"It is a relief the court favored the safety of the community and the environment over the oil and gas industry's profiteering, and that it found this proposed rule clearly violated several federal laws." said Lauren Otero of the Clean Air Council.

"Communities near harm's way along railroad tracks where trains could carry explosive LNG can breathe a sigh of relief now that this dangerous rule has been struck down. We will continue to work to protect people and the environment from the myriad of risks posed by LNG exports and from methane gas extraction, processing, and transport," said Cathy Collentine, Director of Sierra's Beyond Dirty Fuels Campaign

"This rail plan was so obviously risky that it's hard to believe it was ever proposed, and I'm so glad the court sided with safety, wildlife and healthy communities," said Emily Jeffers, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. "There's enormous potential for disaster in sending train cars loaded with explosive liquid natural gas through populated areas. That kind of hazard to people and endangered animals and their habitat is unconscionable at a time when we can and should be transitioning to cleaner energy sources."

"The Court's decision has righted a wrong rulemaking that exposed communities across the nation to unprecedented danger. The legal challenge brought to protect the public from reckless government decision-making was necessary to prevent rail disasters that would have proliferated otherwise," said Tracy Carluccio, Deputy Director, Delaware Riverkeeper Network.

Liquefied natural gas can also produce a BLEVE, or "boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion." During a BLEVE, pressurized liquid 'explodes' both chemically and physically (simultaneously vaporizing and combusting). A BLEVE creates three primary dangers: a blast wave, projections of the container fragments, and in the case of flammable vapors, a fireball.

In 2013, a train carrying crude oil - far less explosive than liquefied natural gas - derailed in Lac Mégantic, Quebec. The resulting fire led to BLEVEs of numerous tank cars, which leveled the town center and killed 47 people. A BLEVE in a liquefied natural gas train would likely be significantly more powerful than what happened in Lac Mégantic, with each tank car capable of producing a larger fireball and impacting an area up to a mile wide.

"These railcars are moving bombs," said Becky Ayech, president of the Environmental Confederation of Southwest Florida, one of the groups which joined the legal challenge.

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration's rule provided no restrictions on the number or distribution of liquefied natural gas tanker cars in a particular train, nor on the routes these trains could travel.

Under the rule, bomb trains carrying 20 or more consecutive LNG tank cars would have been subject to a voluntary speed limit of up to 50 mph through densely-populated cities. Officials at the Federal Railroad Administration have noted that tank cars are unlikely to survive impacts at even 30 mph.

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