“As many as five, two-mile-long crude-oil trains could run over 100 miles directly alongside the headwaters of the Colorado River each day,” Colorado Democrats warned.
With the toxic train derailment in eastern Ohio still in the national spotlight, Democratic members of Colorado’s congressional delegation are pleading with U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to do everything in his power to prevent another railway disaster—one that could affect a river that supplies drinking water to 40 million Americans.
Sens. Michael Bennet, John Hickenlooper, and Rep. Joe Neguse warned Buttiegieg on Thursday not to approve a key federal funding mechanism for the Uinta Basin Railway, a project aimed at connecting eastern Utah’s oil-rich Uinta Basin with the national rail system in order to massively expand fossil fuel production in the region.
“The additional risks posed by this project, including those raised by Colorado communities concerned about the potential for a train derailment along the Colorado River’s headwaters—give reason for caution in using taxpayer funds to support the project, and have gained new urgency in the aftermath of the East Palestine disaster,” the lawmakers wrote.
“If successful, the project could result in as many as five, two-mile-long crude-oil trains running over 100 miles directly alongside the headwaters of the Colorado River each day. Many Colorado communities have expressed concern about the potential impact of railroad accidents on water quality, wildlife, and wildfire risk,” they added. “However, based on our review of the project, we discovered no plan to mitigate the harm of a potential accident or derailment in Colorado, which could be especially difficult to address given our state’s mountainous terrain.”
The letter was sent a day after a CSX train derailed in West Virginia, spilling an unknown amount of diesel fuel into one of North America’s oldest rivers. Every year, more than 1,000 trains derail in the United States, where powerful rail companies have used their vast resources to fight off and weaken safety regulations.
The lawmakers specifically urged Buttigieg to deny the Uinta Basin Railway project access to tax-exempt private activity bonds in their letter (PABs). On Thursday, Utah’s Seven County Infrastructure Coalition, a public-private partnership that oversees the project, formally approved a request to the Transportation Department for up to $2 billion in PABs, without which the project may struggle to move forward as costs rise.
PABs could protect70% of the project’s expenses are estimated.
“Generally, the Department of Transportation has issued PABs for passenger rail and highway improvements: projects that provide a clear public transportation benefit,” the Colorado Democrats wrote. “There is no precedent for using PABs to fund a rail project solely for crude oil transportation.”
If Buttigieg disregards the warnings of lawmakers, local residents, and environmentalists and approves the bonds, “this would not only constitute the largest PAB the DOT has ever issued; it would also irreversibly sink taxpayer dollars into a project that has proven unable to contain its own costs,” the Democratic congressmen wrote.
The fact that we keep having disasters like East Palestine and near misses is a regulatory failure that demonstrates the absolute power of railway industry lobbying.”
Aside from the potential costs to taxpayers, climate advocates have been arguing for more than a year that the Uinta Basin Railway is a major threat to the United States’ efforts to combat climate change. The Center for Biological Diversity has published. The project has been dubbed “one of the nation’s biggest carbon bombs,” with the potential to quadruple oil production in Utah’s Uinta Basin.
“The railway will stimulate an increase of up to 350,000 barrels per day, amounting to up to 53 million tonnes of annual carbon pollution—as much as or more than what the nation’s three largest power plants produce,” the group stated last June. “Sending tens of millions of barrels of crude oil from Utah to the Houston area for refining each year would be the equivalent of adding a new refinery to a region that already exceeds national pollution standards.”
The Surface Transportation Board, an independent federal agency, has approved the new rail line for the Uinta Basin project, which will be completed in December 2021. Months later, the US Forest Service granted permission, prompting a coalition of environmental organisations to file a lawsuit.
Kristen Boyles, a managing attorney at Earthjustice, toldThe Guardian on Thursday that “it will be a triumph of corporate greed” if the project is ultimately allowed to move forward.
The fact that we keep having disasters like East Palestine and near misses is a regulatory failure that demonstrates the absolute power of railway industry lobbying,” Boyles said.
