Stop LNG by Rail Permits

Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration

The Special Permit issued by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) to Energy Transport Solutions (ETS) for rail transport from Wyalusing, PA, to Gibbstown, NJ, expired November 30 after two years with no use. ETS submitted a late application for a renewal on the date of expiration. PHMSA is currently deciding how to handle the application. The potential impacts to public safety and greenhouse gas emissions have been further documented since the issuance of the Special Permit in 2019. Additionally, ETS has shown no justification for the renewal of the Special Permit.

The Special Permit to transport LNG in substandard DOT-113C120W tank cars was a reckless and unfounded decision rushed through the approval process to benefit New Fortress Energy’s proposed LNG export project. LNG is a hazardous, flammable, and potentially explosive cargo. Millions of people would potentially be affected by a release of LNG from a derailment or other catastrophic incident. The rail route directly exposes hundreds of communities in Pennsylvania and New Jersey—approximately two million people, including many communities of color and low-income populations already overburdened with environmental injustices, institutions such as hospitals, schools, day care centers, and important infrastructure—to the dangers posed by the up to 100-car LNG trains that would travel as often as twice per day through their neighborhoods. This injustice is intolerable.

Subsequent to its issuing a Special Permit to ETS, PHMSA issued a federal rule on July 24, 2020 that lifted the long-standing ban on LNG transport by rail. The federal rule authorized the bulk transportation of LNG by rail tank car for carriers nationwide and imposed additional conditions, including specifications for a new cryogenic rail car.

While we do not believe that the 2020 LNG-by-rail rule sufficiently accounts for public safety, the Special Permit does not even meet the conditions imposed in that rule, instead allowing LNG transport in tank cars that did not meet the safety criteria in the 2020 federal rule. It would be a brazen disregard of public safety for PHMSA to knowingly renew the Special Permit for the transport of LNG in unsafe rail cars.

LNG is liquefied methane. Methane is a greenhouse gas (GHG) 86 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in heating the atmosphere on a 20-year time scale and 104 times more powerful over a 10-year period, the periods of time when scientists say we must reduce GHG emissions to address the climate crisis. The overwhelming weight of evidence supports that reducing methane is key to quickly reducing greenhouse gas emissions and slowing global warming over the next 10 years. Methane leaks and/or is vented in all phases of the LNG production process, including storage, transport, transloading and use. In light of the high global warming potential of methane, the Biden administration has pledged to slash methane emissions. Enabling a new market for LNG and stepping up gas extraction and transportation will exacerbate climate change and undercut our collective climate goals to prevent the earth’s warming.

On November 8, 2021, PHMSA proposed rulemaking to suspend the July 2020 federal rule. A public comment period closed December 23, 2021. As of the date of this petition, there has not been a PHMSA decision on the suspension. Thus, we call on PHMSA to adopt the rule to suspend the PHMSA federal LNG-by-rail rule.

We further call on PHMSA to adopt further rulemaking to permanently and categorically ban transport of LNG on our nation’s railways. This ban must prevent the approval of any and all separately issued LNG by rail Special Permits for the same public safety and climate reasons, including SP 20534 to ETS, because they endanger our communities and the environment.

ALL our communities must be protected!

To: Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration
From: [Your Name]

We, the undersigned, call upon President Biden and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) to take decisive action to protect our communities. Our communities must not be exposed to the threat to their safety posed by LNG transportation by rail.
1. Deny a renewal request by Energy Transport Solutions of Special Permit DOT-SP 20534, authorized in 2019, for the transport of LNG from a planned LNG liquefaction plant in Wyalusing Township, PA to the Gibbstown Logistics Center in Gibbstown, NJ. The trains would cut through hundreds of communities, including densely populated areas such as Wilkes Barre, Reading, Allentown, and Philadelphia in Pennsylvania and Camden and other southern municipalities in New Jersey. The permit was never used and the renewal request was received at the last minute.
2. We call upon PHMSA to adopt proposed rule RIN 2137–AF55 in order to suspend the previous federal administration’s federal rule that authorized LNG to be transported on the nation’s railways.
3. We call upon PHMSA and the Biden administration to permanently ban the transport of LNG on the nation’s railways, as was the status for decades, prior to the previous administration’s rulemaking to permit it and to deny approval for Special Permits before the ban is adopted.