NYS attorney general pushes federal limit on crude oil train explosion risk

State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has drawn support from Capital Region leaders in his push for new federal safety rules on crude oil shipped across the U.S. in massive trains that would make it less explosive.

In a petition filed Tuesday with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the state's top lawyer sought reduced limits on the vapor pressure of oil shipped in tanker cars from the Bakken hydrofrack fields of North Dakota to coastal refineries.

In New York, trains carrying millions of gallons of crude oil routinely travel through our cities and towns without any limit on its flammability and explosiveness — which makes crude oil more likely to catch fire and explode in train accidents.

The North Dakota standard also is well above the pressure of 9 to 9.3 found in Bakken crude by Canadian safety officials after 47 people were killed in a massive explosion and fire when a crude oil train derailed in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, in July 2013.

According to the North Dakota Petroleum Council, the average Bakken crude has a psi of between 11.5 and 11.8 psi.

Sabrina Fang, a spokeswoman for The American Petroleum Institute, which represents the crude oil industry, said vapor pressure "is a poor parameter for crude oil transport classification and solely using vapor pressure as a metric could lead to erroneous results."