The toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, is reviving a debate about whether natural gas should be transported by rail. While trains aren’t yet carrying large-scale shipments of liquefied natural gas in the United States, the Trump administration authorized the practice and the Biden administration is now weighing whether to permanently revoke that decision, writes POLITICO’s E&E News reporter Shelby Webb. Natural gas companies say rail could open up transportation options for states that have been reluctant to build new natural gas pipelines, like New York and Pennsylvania. But a group of Democratic lawmakers is urging the administration to permanently suspend the authorization in light of the Norfolk Southern train derailment, which spewed hazardous chemicals, including vinyl chloride, into the Ohio-Pennsylvania border town earlier this month. The accident prompted the evacuation of thousands of residents, compromised the town’s air and water quality, and killed thousands of fish and birds. Liquefied natural gas, meanwhile, is both highly combustible and cold. Unintended spills could cause fires that are hard to extinguish while releasing methane into the atmosphere, among other risks. Democrats from the Pennsylvania congressional delegation sent a letter on Friday to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg asking him to permanently revoke the gas-by-rail rule that former President Donald Trump finalized in 2020. President Joe Biden hit the pause button on that decision shortly after his inauguration, suspending it until at least 2024 as the administration further studies the safety risks. Advocates of the authorization, including House Republicans, say LNG-by-rail is perfectly safe. They say the Trump-era plan would require train cars to have a thicker layer of outer steel to prevent damage in the event of a derailment. But past derailments of fossil fuels have proved devastating. In 2013, an unattended parked train in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, rolled to the town’s core and derailed, spilling 2 million gallons of crude oil that caught fire and exploded. Forty-seven people died, and the town was all but leveled. Bradley Marshall, a senior attorney for Earthjustice who led a legal battle against the Trump rule, said even a small amount of spilt natural gas “can prove pretty catastrophic.” “It could get into a storm water sewer and still have enough concentration to ignite and destroy [a] good chunk of area with it,” he told Shelby.
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