Trucking Delegation Meets With OMB, Says Wetlines Rule Cost Exceeds Benefit

This story appears in the Nov. 29 print edition of Transport Topics.

The costs of a proposed federal rule expected to prohibit the transportation of flammable liquids in unprotected product piping on tank trucks would far outweigh the benefits, a trucking industry delegation told White House officials last week.

The Nov. 22 meeting with five officials from the White House Office of Management and Budget was designed to give a tank-truck industry perspective and cost-benefit analysis in advance of a new Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration rulemaking, said Barbara Windsor, chairman of American Trucking Associations, who attended the session.

“We don’t know what PHMSA is coming out with and it’s not coming out until January,” Windsor said. “But OMB agreed to meet with us on our cost analysis. We think that the funds should be spent on something that would help us more towards safety.”

Windsor said the meeting was originally scheduled for 30 minutes but actually ran from 45 to 50 minutes and that OMB officials “asked a lot of questions.”

“The meeting was simply a chance for us to alert OMB as to the costs incidental to a wetlines ban,” said Richard Moskowitz, vice president and regulatory affairs counsel for ATA. “PHMSA has had several bites at this apple, the most recent being in 2004 when they proposed a wetlines ban that ultimately was withdrawn in 2006 because the costs for purging equipment exceed the benefits from controlling flammable liquids in wetlines.”

OMB invited PHMSA officials to the meeting, but they chose not to attend, Moskowitz said.

PHMSA forwarded its proposed rule to OMB on Oct. 15. OMB reviews all federal agency rules prior to publication.

Congress and the National Transportation Safety Board have been pushing for a rule for more than a decade, because of concerns that wetlines filled with flammable liquids have the potential to cause a serious fire if they are ruptured in a crash.

However, members of the delegation told OMB officials that a regulation would be very costly for the transporters of flammable liquids.

They said that in the face of 50,000 shipments of petroleum each day there has been less than one fatality per year, and that the installation of a purging system is far more dangerous than the potential crash threat, Moskowitz said.

“We can’t conceive of a solution where the benefits exceed the costs,” Moskowitz said. “However, if the administration decides to move forward with a solution to the wetlines issue, it would be more cost effective to require the petroleum terminals to remove the product at the terminal facility rather than to require 27,000 cargo tank motor vehicles to be retrofitted.”

ATA estimated that the total cost of a retrofit would be about $5,600 per tank to purge the roughly 40 gallons of product typically contained in a tank truck’s wetlines.

Moskowitz said there have been only six fatalities attributed to wetlines fires in the past 10 years and that the risk of being killed in a wetlines accident is one in 30 million.

In addition, the purging system solution probably is in conflict with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and some state air regulations because using compressed air to purge the system forces the liquid in wetlines back into the cargo tank.

That, in turn, increases pressure in the cargo tank, causing the relief valve to release volatile organic compounds that could cause an explosion, Moskowitz said.

“The last time PHMSA posted its rule, the California Air Resources Board actually opposed the rule on those grounds,” Moskowitz said.

Those attending the meeting in addition to Windsor and Moskowitz were Roy Clark, Baltimore Cargo Tank Services Inc., Baltimore; John Conley, president of National Tank Truck Carriers; Bill Usher, president of Usher Transport Inc, Louisville, Ky.; and Bill Downey, executive vice president of corporate affairs for Kenan Advantage Group Inc., Canton, Ohio.

Clark, who runs a tank repair facility that installs retrofit equipment to purge wetlines of product, actually argued against the soon-to-be-made-public regulation, Windsor said.

“I complimented him on his integrity — he could stand to make lots of dollars, but he came to speak against it,” Windsor said.

Conley said, “I thought the meeting was very productive. The OMB representatives asked some good questions for which we had good answers. There is no way a ban on wetlines can be justified on a cost or safety basis.”