A federal appeals court last week roundly rejected a Trump-era rule that would have expanded rail transport of liquefied natural gas.
In a decision issued Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s 2020 rule failed to thoroughly analyze the public safety and environmental risks of transporting the highly flammable fuel on the nation’s railways.
Though the chance of a rail accident while transporting LNG is low, the risks if one happens are “dire, if not cataclysmic,” said Judge Florence Pan, writing the court’s unanimous opinion.
“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. “The real possibility of such catastrophes significantly affects the quality of the human environment.”
