U.S. Senate Republicans end bid to pare back oil train safety rule

By David Morgan
WASHINGTON, July 22 (Reuters) - Senate Republicans have
backed away from a controversial proposal that would have
repealed a new federal safety rule requiring oil trains to be
equipped with advanced new braking systems.
Republicans eliminated the proposal from a multi-year
surface transportation bill, after coming under pressure from
the Obama administration and Democratic lawmakers, whose support
they need for passage of the legislation, Senate aides said on
Wednesday.
In late June, the Republican-controlled Senate Commerce
Committee voted to repeal the requirement that trains carrying
crude oil install electronically controlled pneumatic or ECP
brakes, less than two months after the administration unveiled
sweeping new rules aimed at preventing catastrophic oil train
derailments.
But the railroad and oil industries, including interests
controlled by billionaire investor Warren Buffett, mounted a
powerful lobbying campaign to overturn the ECP requirement,
saying it would slap an unnecessary $3 billion cost on
railroads, oil refiners and others. holding company, is the leading U.S.
railroad for crude oil shipments and would have benefited most
from cost relief if the Republican bid had been successful.
Senator John Thune, Republican chairman of the Senate
Commerce Committee, proposed repealing the ECP requirement last
month with a measure that orders new research to justify the
technology's benefits until a permanent decision is made.
But the legislation unveiled this week by Senate Republican
leader Mitch McConnell preserves the ECP requirement. It still
requires the study of braking technologies, and calls on the
transportation secretary to repeal the ECP requirement
eventually if the research does not justify its use.
Administration officials had expressed concern that if the
requirement was repealed now and research later did prove ECP's
merits, the government would not be able to formulate new rules
in time to order railroads to begin implementing the technology,
aides said. The current rule calls for implementation to begin
in 2021.
Republicans also got resistance from Democrats including
Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who told Thune that
repealing the ECP requirement would require regulators to start
over and entail years of delay.
"We just shouldn't repeal them until we know that they're
not a wise investment," Manchin said. "We can't afford to be
wrong on this one."
The Association of American Railroads, a trade group that
represents more than 20 freight railroad companies, said the
Senate bill still recognizes "the critical need to make sure
adequate data is gathered on this technology."