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  Railroads Claim National Security in Keeping Oil Train Routes Secret
May 20, 2014
 
 

Railroads Claim National Security in Keeping Oil Train Routes Secret

As crude oil shipments have proliferated and raised safety concerns across the country, railroads have refused to acknowledge their routes and frequencies.
Railroads companies have claimed that they're prohibited by federal law from divulging those details for national security reasons.
Asked about where oil trains go, companies, including Union Pacific and BNSF Railway Co., have said federal law classifies crude oil as "sensitive security information," information that's not classified but not public, part of a post-Sept. 11 security push, said The Oregonian.
Crude oil isn't classified as a sensitive security commodity, a U.S. Department of Transportation spokesman, Michael England, confirmed.
Union Pacific representatives, meeting recently with The Oregonian's editorial board, claimed it was, saying they were legally prohibited from publicly sharing information about oil train routing, volumes or schedules.
"There's terrorist issues, identifying what's a train carrying that people could do something to," said Scott Moore, a Union Pacific spokesman. "Right or wrong, that's one of the ways we think we've helped deliver things securely is people don't always know what's going on. We're not going to tell him or her when and where."
Yet, some aspects of moving hazardous materials are considered restricted: vulnerability assessments, the names of railroad security employees and security plans, The Oregonian reported.
State Rep. Jessyn Farrell, a Washington Democrat who sponsored the disclosure bill there, said she found it disingenuous that railroads refused to talk about oil routes when the location of ships moving oil on waterways are disclosed in real time and available online.
"We know there are safety risks," Farrell said of oil trains. "But I don't think it's the risks they're saying."
Michael Eyer, a former Oregon rail safety inspector, said the railroads' tendency toward secrecy was institutional.
"Part of it is that we're the railroad and we run on private property and that's the way we've done things," he said.
Read more: http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2014/05/railroads_claim_national_secur.html
http://www.columbian.com/news/2014/may/18/feds-oil-train-routes-no-security-issue/
http://trib.com/opinion/columns/nettleton-bnsf-committed-to-oil-by-rail-safety/article_99472b54-7a8e-5c2a-9a4c-f0741d815cd7.html


 

 
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