As Trump prepares to become president again, his LNG-by-rail rule loses in court
Regulators didn't fully evaluate risks of transporting highly flammable liquid gas by rail, judges said. The decision highlights the first Trump admin's shoddy record in court.
Just days before Donald Trump was set to be sworn in for a second term as president, a federal circuit court in D.C. vacated a rule from his first administration letting liquefied natural gas (LNG) be transported on trains without special permits.
A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, agreeing with a Native American tribe, environmentalists and Democratic-led states, ruled on Friday that the U.S. Transportation Department had inadequately considered the probability that LNG-by-rail poses public health and environmental threats.
By failing to take a more probing review before finalizing the rule in 2020, Circuit Court Judge Florence Pan said the rule was “arbitrary and capricious” in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act.
“A breach of one or more rail cars containing LNG could cause an explosion, an inferno, or the spread of a freezing, flammable, suffocating vapor cloud,” Pan wrote for the court.
She added later that the government’s failure to consider the possibility of such an event, even though the rail cars that would be used had filed 14 times since 1980, was “demonstrably inadequate.”
The decision sends the rule, which the Biden administration had already suspended, back to Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to re-do its rulemaking, should it decide that LNG-by-rail is still a priority.
Rail industry and LNG groups didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment, but have argued that LNG-by-rail can be done safely and is an economic solution that will allow producers to meet demand and overcome pipeline capacity concerns.
The rail rule that the D.C. Circuit vacated included a requirement that specialized tankers be used, but did not include limits on the number of tankers that could be carrying LNG or set speed limits.
A ‘bomb’ the size of Hiroshima
LNG, also known as methane, is a hot topic in the energy world, especially now in the years after Russia invaded Ukraine. That invasion caused gas supply shortages in Europe, which increased demand for the fuel from places like the United States.
The fuel is also in demand in developing countries in Asia and Latin America, since it is often seen as a cleaner alternative to coal.
In the United States, LNG is typically transported via the country’s extensive network of pipelines or on trucks. LNG can only currently be transported by rail in the U.S. with a special permit.
But opponents of LNG-by-rail have said the chemical components of the fuel make it especially dangerous to transport using trains, and an incident involving just 22 tanker cars with LNG could create an explosion the size of the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War 2.
The LNG-by-rail court case happens to have come at a time of increased scrutiny on U.S. rail transport in general, due to the 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. That derailment, which sent a plume of smoke into the sky after toxic chemicals caught fire, highlighted numerous concerns including inadequate staffing and safety measures.
Bradley Marshall, a senior attorney at Earthjustice who argued against the LNG-by-rail rule at the D.C. Circuit, told Landmark an LNG rail disaster “could be far more devastating than the East Palestine disaster or a crude spill due to the unique properties of LNG and how it disperses in an urban disaster.”
He said that “super-chilled methane” can naturally move into lower elevations, entering stormwater or sewage systems, and can spread for miles. If then ignited, the resulting blaze could trace all the way back to the source and destroy everything above that stormwater or sewage system.
“Also, a chain reaction at derailment could occur, incinerating everything nearby and creating a devastating blast radius,” he said.
At least one major LNG disaster has occurred in the United States illustrating that threat — in 1944, when LNG vapor from a Cleveland, Ohio, gas plant leaked into the community before igniting. That incident killed 131 people and engulfed a square mile of the city in flames.
What’s to come
Trump will have four more years to go back to the drawing board and rewrite a rule allowing LNG-by-rail, should that be a priority.
But the case highlights what Landmark has previously reported, namely that the first Trump administration frequently lost in court when writing these sorts of rules.
Should the second administration seek to write more lasting rules, experts have told this publication that it will need to do a better job of paying attention to the details.