Governor Jerry Brown of California September 8, 2015, signed into law bipartisan legislation requiring that all freight trains and light engines are operated by a crew of at least two individuals.
SMART Transportation Division National Legislative Director, John Risch, praised the new law: “I am very pleased that California has joined Wisconsin, Arizona and West Virginia in adopting these sensible requirements. This is a matter of public safety, plain and simple. Freight railroad operations are complex and often entail the transport of highly hazardous materials, such as crude oil, chlorine gas and many other chemicals; two crew members are vital to ensuring that these trains are operated safely and our communities are secure.”
Risch also praised those responsible for crafting and passing the legislation: “Many thanks go to Senator Lois Wolk for her sponsorship and to J.P. Jones and Mike Anderson of the SMART Transportation Division California State Legislative Board for their work explaining the importance of this legislation to California lawmakers.”
The law is supported by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), which reports that of all the industries subject to its oversight – energy, water, telecommunications and transportation – rail accidents result in the greatest number of fatalities each year. In advocating for the bill, CPUC Deputy Director of the Office of Rail Safety, Paul King, said, “Senator Wolk’s bill would ensure that freight trains continue to have the safety redundancy that a second person provides. Such redundancy is a fundamental safety principle that is evidenced in certain industries, such as using two pilots in an airplane cockpit, or requiring back-up cooling systems for nuclear reactors.”
Congressman Don Young of Alaska has introduced legislation at the federal level – H.R. 1763, the Safe Freight Act – which would similarly require that all freight trains are operated by a minimum of two individuals, a certified conductor and a certified engineer. On April 14, 2015,
H.R. 1763 was referred to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials.
When Ramona Dockter was a senior in high school, her brother asked her what she wanted to be. She told him that she wanted to work on the railroad like her father, and she did.
For several months, 18-year-old Dockter worked as a brakeman alongside engineers who helped her understand railroading, including Ray Schlosser, Franky Hoffman and Bill Stumpf. They encouraged her to become an engineer as well.
“As Bill said, ‘Opportunity only knocks once,'” Dockter said. “So I decided yes.”
Ramona Dockter was a member of UTU Local 1344 (Mandan, N.D.) during her time as an engineer, before she left the industry. Franky Hoffman was also a member of Local 1344 before his retirement.
Ramona Dockter and National Legislative Director John Risch after Dockter’s induction into the Railroad Hall of Fame.
During the past two months, more than a dozen oil and rail industry groups jockeyed for attention as Obama administration officials put the finishing touches on a major crude-by-rail safety rule.
But as firms such as Exxon Mobil Corp., Hess Corp. and CSX Corp. led one last lobbying blitz, several environmentalist and labor organizations paid their first visits to the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) as it weighed the final regulations.
John Risch, national legislative director for the SMART union’s transportation division, said his group’s March 30 meeting at OIRA stemmed from a desire to do “something different” about the oil safety rule, which touches on everything from train speed to tank car design. OIRA is a small but influential part of the Office of Management and Budget that analyzes the costs and benefits of a given rule before it goes public.
“I saw actually a press clip that the railroads had met with [OIRA] and I thought, ‘Wow, I’m missing a step here,’ so I requested to meet with them,” Risch said, noting that SMART-TD had filed comments on an earlier draft of the crude-by-rail rule in addition to working with the Federal Railroad Administration.
Earlier in the month, representatives from the environmental group Earthjustice sat down with OIRA to call for a ban on the oldest, least crash-worthy type DOT-111 tank cars still used to haul thousands of barrels of crude across the country each day. Other organizations present at the March 13 meeting included ForestEthics, Riverkeeper and the Sierra Club, all of which have voiced concerns about a string of recent oil train derailments and explosions.
Earthjustice again met with OIRA on April 15, just two weeks before the release of the final rule.
“We’re starting to see more and more people get engaged on this rule because these tank cars are rolling through towns and communities across the country,” said Jessica Ennis, a senior legislative representative with Earthjustice who lobbies on a range of topics important to the organization. “Every time there’s another explosion, more people are realizing that carrying crude oil by rail is actually very dangerous.”
The new Department of Transportation rule aims to make that process less dangerous by toughening new tank car standards and requiring shippers to update older cars on a 10-year time frame. The rule also caps oil and ethanol trains’ speed limits at 40 mph through most big cities and 50 mph elsewhere.
Environmentalist groups have been largely critical of the final rule, noting that it applies only to trains with 20 or more tank cars and follows a too-leisurely phaseout schedule.
Brakes added
Risch of SMART-TD is more satisfied with the rule.
At the meeting he called for in March, Risch pushed transportation regulators to make railroads add electronically controlled pneumatic brakes — a technology the North Dakota native hailed as “the greatest safety enhancement I witnessed in my 30-year career as a locomotive engineer.”
The final rule would require trains carrying 70 or more cars of the most flammable kinds of crude to use ECP brakes by 2021 or face a 30 mph speed limit, with other “high-hazard flammable unit trains” following suit by 2023.
The rail, oil and tank car industries had fought an ECP braking mandate as expensive and unnecessary, with Ed Hamberger, head of the Association of American Railroads, calling their requirement a “rash rush to judgment” on the part of DOT.
Risch acknowledged that the shift to ECP technology would come at a cost but called DOT’s 2021 initial deadline a “reasonable approach.”
“It’s not radical like it’s being portrayed,” he said.
Green groups led by Earthjustice had hoped for faster and broader application of ECP brakes, which government analyses said would reduce the severity of oil train accidents by up to 36 percent compared to regular braking systems.
Environmentalists had also sought to draw attention to the towns affected by the DOT rulemaking, with Ennis of Earthjustice helping schedule a conference call between Obama administration officials and council members from several cities.
“I think these meetings are extremely important, especially with local elected officials — they’re closest to where these accidents can happen across the country,” Ennis noted. “They have a unique, on-the-ground perspective on this that’s very important for the DOT to hear.”
Shannon Williamson, a City Council member in Sandpoint, Idaho, participated in the April 15 conference call with OIRA and called the conversation an “absolutely critical opportunity.”
Sandpoint is a hub for westbound crude from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale play, where the bulk of the nation’s oil-by-rail shipments originate. Oil train traffic rose from about 15 oil trains per week to 23 in the span of a year, said Williamson, who is also executive director of the environmental nonprofit Lake Pend Oreille Waterkeeper.
She added that her town is about the same size as Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, where a 72-car train hauling Bakken crude derailed and exploded in July 2013, killing 47 people.
That disaster set into motion the rulemaking unveiled Friday, which was a joint effort between U.S. and Canadian regulators.
“The oil industry had lobbyists in the administrative offices practically every single day during this whole rulemaking,” Williamson said. “The people who are going to be impacted by oil-by-rail transport are not being adequately represented — or they weren’t.”
This story was written by Blake Sobczak and originally appeared on EnergyWire and was reposted with permission from Sobczak.
Washington, D.C. – Earlier today, the Department of Transportation (DOT) announced its final rule for rail shipments of flammable liquids. The rule calls for enhanced safety standards for High-Hazard Flammable Trains (HHFT), including stricter tank car construction standards, the phasing out of older tank car models, the use of electronically controlled pneumatic brakes (ECP), and will make permanent previously announced speed restrictions.
John Risch, SMART Transportation Division National Legislative Director, welcomed DOT’s final rule, specifically applauding the mandate of ECP brakes: “This is a game changer. I’ve operated trains with ECP brakes, and they are the greatest advancement in safety I’ve seen in my 35 years in the industry.”
According to a 2006 FRA report, ECP brakes can stop trains 40-70% faster than conventional train brakes and allow for a graduated release, which is vital to the safe handling of trains in cold weather and on heavy grades. ECP brakes will save the lives of railroad workers and better protect the millions of Americans living near rail lines.” The DOT’s ECP mandates must be fully complied with by May 2023.
Additionally, Risch expressed relief that the rule does not unreasonably restrict train speeds, something that would add to traffic congestion and further delay passenger rail service. The rule will restrict all HHFTs to 50 mph in all areas and restrict certain HHFTs to 40 mph in designated high-risk urban areas.
“While this rule will go a long way towards ensuring the safety of our nation’s railroads, more can be done. We now urge the DOT and Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to ensure that all freight trains are operated by a minimum of two individuals – a certified conductor and certified engineer,” said Risch.
Thanks to all of you who helped in our Get Out the Vote Campaign. Your generosity with your PAC contributions, emails and direct mail efforts, volunteer phone calling, door knocking, and your conversations with friends and fellow members made a difference in many races. Even where our endorsed candidates didn’t prevail, your efforts were not in vain. Rather, it showed that we were engaged and that we are an organization that supports those that support us.
Clearly the results from Tuesday’s elections were not what many of us had hoped. We lost some good friends like Rep. Nick Rahall (D) in West Virginia and Sen. Mark Pryor in Arkansas (D).
Now our job begins to build relationships with the newly elected members of Congress, whether they are Democrat or Republican. Anthony Simon, our Long Island Rail Road general chairperson, has already reached out to two newly elected Republican congressmen in New York and is setting up introductory meetings.
Special thanks go to Dean Mitchell, our GOTV coordinator, for his hundreds of hours of work on direct mail pieces, robocalls and polling. He worked with our legislative boards to make sure our members were informed as to why we endorsed the candidates we did and helped with early and absentee voting.
Dean also helped with polling and direct mail that made a big difference in the re-election of two good Republican friends, Reps. Chris Gibson and Michael Grimm, both of New York.
Thanks also goes to Phillip Qualy, our Minnesota state legislative director, and his team, that did a phenomenal job of holding back a tough challenge against our friend, Rep. Rick Nolan (D), a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
There is no escaping the reality that the incoming Congress will be less supportive of issues important to our members than the existing Congress. It will be harder to pass a two-person train crew bill and it will be harder to secure adequate funding for Amtrak, transit, essential air service and the National Mediation Board.
This simply means we have to work harder to make our case for all of these things. A first step is for our state legislative directors to meet with the newly elected members and make the case for issues that are important to us.
We don’t have the power to win political elections on our own and this election proved that. What we do have is an obligation to work hard and do the best job that we can for our members. That’s my plan moving forward. With the help of Greg Hynes, our alternate national legislative director, our staff and our state legislative boards, we can protect the interests of our members just as our union has done for more than 100 years.
Congressional elections do matter. Actions of Congress can make a big difference when it comes to our job security, our wages, our fringe benefits, our retirement and safety in our workplace.
In this issue of the SMART Transportation Division News are our official endorsements for the Nov. 4 election. These endorsements are based on recommendations from our state legislative boards which, with our national office, reviewed the voting records of incumbent lawmakers and conducted thorough interviews with new candidates seeking national office.
Our constitution requires that we make these endorsements and we take this obligation seriously. A full listing of how Congressional legislators voted on issues important to our members can be found on the Transportation Division website at www.utu.org by clicking on the 2014 Voter Information tile at the bottom right corner of the homepage.
The upcoming session of Congress will be a busy one. We will be working to pass legislation requiring a minimum of two persons – a certified conductor and a certified engineer – working on all trains. One current bill, Senate Bill S. 2784 – the Rail Safety Improvement Act, is reported on page 1 of this publication.
We will be working to see that our transit systems and Amtrak receive the funding they so desperately need. Likewise, we will be working to make sure that the National Mediation Board receives the funding it needs to resolve disputes in the workplace in a timely manner. We will be working with our Sheet Metal brothers and sisters on issues important to the construction industry and to ensure that the Essential Air Service program is properly funded.
Electing labor-friendly legislators is the key to our success. Our Legislative Department can be the best in the business, but if this election produces a Congress in which a majority of its members don’t even believe in the fundamental rights of workers, our efforts to protect our members’ jobs, paychecks, benefits, retirement income and workplace safety will be much harder.
We all have our personal views about life and the government. I understand that we have members that are Democrats, Republicans, independents, Tea Party Libertarians, Green Party environmentalists and just about every flavor out there. While I appreciate our diversity, I urge you to take into consideration the endorsements in this newspaper when you cast your ballot.
These endorsements were based on issues like support for two-person train crews, Amtrak, the coal industry, mass transportation funding, and other work-related issues.
Our endorsed incumbents have supported our work-related issues and the endorsed candidates have pledged to do so.
Neither I nor anyone else in our union tells anyone “how to vote.” What we do is fulfill our constitutional responsibility to endorse those that we believe will support us once they’re elected. To do anything less would be shirking our constitutional responsibility.
Come Nov. 4, no matter whom you choose to vote for…choose to vote. If your state has early or absentee voting, take advantage of this opportunity, especially if you work a road job or an extra-board.
I look forward to serving each of you as your National Legislative Director and pledge to do my best. That being said, our legislative department’s odds of success will be much better if you send folks to Congress that support our issues.
John Risch
National Legislative Director SMART Transportation Division
Below are Congressional scorecards compiled by the SMART Transportation Division Legislative Office. See how your legislators voted on the issue affecting your job.
Click here for the SMART Transportation Division’s congressional endorsements as determined by its state legislative boards and National Legislative Office.
ECP braking technology is part of DOT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s (PHMSA) proposed ruling to make hauling crude oil safer. If passed, the proposal would require advanced braking systems, called electronically controlled pneumatic brakes or ECP technology, to be installed on trains hauling 20 cars or more of oil or ethanol.
National Legislative Director John Risch recently commented in an article by Energy Wire, stating that ECP braking technology is “the greatest advancement in safety I have witnessed in 30 years on the railroads.”
Risch went on further to say, “By instantaneously applying the brakes on all cars, ECP systems reduce in-train forces and dramatically reduce the distance a train needs to stop.”
Transportation regulators have estimated that if something is not done, the next oil train derailment could cost up to $5.75 billion, more than twice as devastating as the derailment and explosion that occurred in Lac-Megantic, Quebec.
The PHMSA’s proposed ruling also includes making oil trains safer by requiring newly designed tank cars with a thicker steel shell. The proposal has three options on the table for new tank cars. Option I is a tank car that features a 9/16 inch steel shell, outfitted with ECP brakes and equipped with rollover protection. Option II would also have the 9/16 inch steel but would not require the car to feature ECP brakes, while option III would have 7/16 inch steel and would also not require the ECP brakes or rollover protection.
In his comments to PHMSA’s proposed ruling, Risch stated, “We support Option I that features tank cars with 9/16 inch steel, outfitted with ECP brakes and equipped with rollover protection. We believe that Options II and III should be eliminated and Option I established as the standard.”
Risch has also suggested in an additional letter to the PHMSA that additional safety measures be taken. “We respectfully recommend that there be a minimum requirement of five buffer cars of sand behind the lead locomotives on all crude oil and ethanol unit cars. These buffer cars will give the crew some time to get out of the locomotive cabs and evacuate the area with their lives after a train wreck.
“During an accident, the sand buffer cars can rupture and spill sand creating a berm on the ground between the crew and draining oil. That spilled sand can also be used to help soak up the spilled oil or ethanol.
“Our nation’s railroads are an inherently safe way to transport ethanol and crude oil and accidents are rare. That being said, safety needs continuous improvement… While prevention is priority, both accidental and intentional incidents are inevitable and must be anticipated by this rulemaking.”
One Bismarck man has ridden the rails from shoveling rock and swinging a spike mallet in the railyard to top official of the country’s largest railway employee union.
John Risch has been elected national legislative director of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers. His five-year term starts Oct. 1.
WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller unveiled an initiative to advance the commercial deployment of clean coal technologies.
On May 5, Rockefeller introduced two bills in the U.S. Senate: The Carbon Capture and Sequestration Deployment Act of 2014 seeks to facilitate the development and commercial deployment of Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) technologies. The Expanding Carbon Capture through Enhanced Oil Recovery Act of 2014 is an innovative approach to providing tax credits for CCS deployment. It would expand and reform the existing Section 45Q Tax Credit for Carbon Sequestration to advance capture technology through the greater use of carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR) in the United States.
This bill is the result of the National Enhanced Oil Recovery Initiative (NEORI) project. For more information about the project, see http://neori.org. ““We at the SMART Transportation Division applaud Sen. Rockefeller for his leadership in introducing legislation to reform the current Q45 tax credit. This legislation will provide the necessary incentives to develop CCS technology and work to reduce the carbon footprint of our nation’s fossil energy resources. This legislation is a strong step toward ensuring that fossil resources, like coal, will have their carbon captured and be used cleanly enough to maintain their role in the U.S. energy mix for decades to come,” said SMART Transportation Division President John Previsich.
Positive train control (PTC) is modern technology to reduce train accidents, save lives and limbs, improve on-time performance and produce revenue-enhancing business benefits for railroads.
PTC utilizes the satellite global positioning system (GPS), wireless communications and central control centers to monitor trains and prevent collisions by automatically applying the brakes on trains exceeding authorized speeds, about to run a red light, violate a work zone or run through a switch left in the wrong position.
For two decades, the National Transportation Safety Board has had PTC installation at the top of its public-safety objectives. The UTU worked with labor-friendly lawmakers to include a mandate for PTC installation in the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008, with a 2015 implementation deadline.
However, the Association of American Railroads, which represents the freight railroad industry – and which 30 years ago was an aggressive proponent of an earlier version of PTC, called Advanced Train Control Systems – is lobbying Congress for a multi-year delay in widespread PTC installation, while offering other options for safety improvements instead of PTC.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington says lawmakers supporting the lengthy delay – including House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) and House Rail Transportation Subcommittee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) – are among the biggest recipients of freight-railroad campaign contributions.
Some commuter railroads and Amtrak view matters quite differently – especially Los Angeles Metrolink, where 25 people died and 135 were injured in a 2008 head-on train accident at Chatsworth, Calif., that safety experts say could have been prevented had PTC been in place.
Amtrak (on track it owns), Metrolink, Chicago Metra and Southeast Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) — in conjunction with owners of track over which they operate — are among commuter systems striving to have PTC operational as early as 2013. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said BNSF will meet the current 2015 implementation date.
Sadly, according to news reports, 24 other commuter railroads and the American Public Transportation Association place a higher priority on spending for gussied up passenger stations, platforms and even new office buildings for executives, and are supporting the delay in PTC implementation.
Los Angeles Metrolink President John Fenton, who adamantly places safety first, told Congress, “We don’t think there is any time to waste given the unforgiving nature of the environment in which we operate.” In bitter memory of the Chatsworth disaster, Fenton and Metrolink employees wear green wrist bands with the words, “Never Again.”
Metrolink is leading the fight against any delay in widespread PTC implementation, explaining that PTC installation costs would be far lower were PTC architecture and components purchased in greater quantity, which would create vendor competition, introduce standardization and spread overhead costs among all railroads.
“PTC can be the technological edge that helps Metrolink achieve the safest operations possible,” says Fenton. “We believe PTC is perhaps the most important safety innovation in our lifetime.”
UTU National Legislative Director James Stem and Alternate National Legislative Director John Risch have been delivering a single message to Congress: “Implementation of PTC is a small price to pay for saving lives and limbs. We need this modern technology safety overlay to protect passengers, the public and train crews.”
Governor Jerry Brown of California September 8, 2015, signed into law bipartisan legislation requiring that all freight trains and light engines are operated by a crew of at least two individuals.
During the past two months, more than a dozen oil and rail industry groups jockeyed for attention as Obama administration officials put the finishing touches on a major crude-by-rail safety rule.
WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller unveiled an initiative to advance the commercial deployment of clean coal technologies.
Positive train control (PTC) is modern technology to reduce train accidents, save lives and limbs, improve on-time performance and produce revenue-enhancing business benefits for railroads.