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 While Dalrymple has little power over federal regulators, his bully
pulpit as head of the second-largest oil-producing state carries
much weight as a national debate rages over the safety of shipping
crude oil by rail.
Federal regulators have been studying railcar design and the
composition of North Dakota's Bakken crude oil after a string of
explosive derailments, including one last month when a 106-car BNSF
Railway Co train carrying crude east crashed into a derailed
westbound BNSF grain train near Dalrymple's hometown of Casselton,
North Dakota.
Last July, a runaway oil train derailed and exploded in the center
of the Quebec town of Lac-Megantic, killing 47 people.
Yet DOT said last week permanent standards are not likely until
2015, leaving companies that make railcars, as well as oil
producers, shippers and processors, in limbo and technically
beholden to outdated regulations.
"We do need some kind of provisional standard for the next year,"
Dalrymple said. Waiting until then "just leaves a couple of
industries guessing."
There has been broad agreement that newer, safer railcars, with more
shielding and advanced valves, are needed to ship crude oil.
The Railway Supply Institute, a trade group for tank car owners,
urged DOT's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA)
last month to adopt safety standards already put in place in October
2011 by the Association of American Railroads, the rail industry's
trade group.
Under those standards, tank railcars known as DOT-111s built after
October 2011 should have thicker hulls and reinforced valves to
better protect against punctures or leaks in derailments.
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Yet retrofitting existing cars takes time and could cost more than
$1 billion, the rail industry has said. New cars are being built now
using standards their manufacturers think are safest. The
possibility exists that DOT's final rules in 2015 could make such
cars outdated and illegal, throwing the industry further into a
tailspin.
"They say they can't come up with specifics until 2015, and to me
that just sounds like a bureaucratic answer," said Dalrymple, a
Republican elected in 2010.
Some 71 percent of all oil produced in North Dakota was transported
by rail in November, or around 800,000 barrels per day (bpd),
according to the state's Pipeline Authority. That compares with
500,000 bpd transported in November 2012, when 58 percent of the oil
had been transported by rail.
Dalrymple said he and other North Dakota politicians would pressure
regulators for standards as soon as possible. He also said railroads
could soon need to rethink how railcars carrying crude oil operate
within urban areas, though he said it is too soon to identify the
possible new procedures.
"This is going to lead to some modifications on the part of BNSF,"
said Dalrymple, referring to the state's largest railroad and one
involved in the Casselton explosion.
(Editing by Terry Wade and Matthew
Lewis)
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