Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was asked to block up to $2 billion in tax-exempt bonds to finance the construction of an 88-mile-long railway in Utah. Colorado Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper and Rep. Joe Neguse, along with a group of more than 150 environmental organizations, sent a letter to Buttigieg voicing concerns over the extraction and use of oil from the Uinta Basin oilfields and rail safety concerns.
Citing the train derailment and chemical spill in East Palestine, Ohio on Feb. 3 that released some 25,800 gallons of vinyl chloride, the Center for Biological Diversity said President Joe Biden should block federal funding of the railroad for both economic and environmental reasons, according to a press release announcing the letter.
The new rail line, which has been approved by the federal Surface Transportation Board, would ship waxy crude oil from Utah’s Uinta Basin oil fields to refineries on the Gulf Coast — or anywhere else on the national rail network — and would provide freight service to the basin.
The railroad would run from the town of Duchesne, Utah, about 100 miles east of Provo, southwest to Price, Utah, where it would connect with the national rail network and the Union Pacific Colorado Central Line.
“This would be a massive federal tax break for a dangerous, polluting railway project that clearly doesn't serve the public's interest. The Biden administration should firmly reject it,” said Deeda Seed, senior campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity, in the release. “President Biden has pledged to reduce carbon emissions and fight the climate emergency. This is a prime opportunity for him to do so.”
The bonds are issued by the U.S. Department of Transportation as part of the $30 billion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The bonds provide private developers and operators with tax-exempt interest rates that significantly lowers the cost of capital and enhances investment, according to the department’s Build America Bureau website.
“Buttigieg can deny the Utah coalition’s request to issue tax-exempt bonds,” said Seed in the release. “Congress directed the department to approve up to $30 billion in tax-exempt private activity bonds, and so far, it’s financed highways and other projects that benefit the motorists, rail passengers and the general public. There’s no precedent for funding a railway that would transport only oil and benefit the oil industry alone.”
However, an amendment to the Internal Revenue Code added highway and freight transfer facilities to the list of projects eligible for private activity bonds. It is unclear if the rail line qualifies as a freight transfer facility.
“Railway developers plan to run up to 180,000 rail cars per year loaded with waxy crude oil through drought-stricken, wildfire-prone landscapes in Utah and Colorado, including a 100-mile stretch of the Colorado River, the source of drinking water for 40 million people,” said the release.
The letter uses figures from an environmental impact statement where probabilities of a rail accident are mentioned.
“Federal analyses predict that if this new railway is built train derailments will more than double to roughly three per year between Kyune, Utah and Denver, Colorado,” said the letter to Buttigieg. “About once a year, according to federal projections, a fully loaded oil train will derail along the route; and roughly once every four years, that derailment would result in an oil spill.”
But a statistical analysis doesn't necessarily represent what will happen, and federal rail safety records show that Union Pacific tracks in Colorado are not prone to hazardous materials spills.
According to the U.S. DOT Rail Equipment Accident/Incident Data dashboard, between 1975 and 2023 there have been five instances in Colorado on Union Pacific tracks where hazardous materials were released from a damaged railcar. The latest report was in 2014.
According to the database there have been 633 derailments of railcars carrying hazardous materials, 69 instances of damage to hazardous materials railcars and five spills in the last 48 years in Colorado.
“As the recent, disastrous train derailment and chemical spill in East Palestine, Ohio shows, rail transportation of hazardous materials threatens communities, air, and water along the way,” according to the letter. “The Department of Transportation should not facilitate a massive increase in the transport of hazardous waxy crude oil on the rail system, thereby increasing the risk of another catastrophic derailment.”
The risk of a catastrophic derailment of railcars carrying Uinta Basin waxy crude oil is quite low, according to Keith Heaton, executive director of the Seven Counties Infrastructure Coalition. It's the organization of Utah counties who created the project, with stated purpose to improve the basin's economic conditions and ease issues with shipping the waxy crude by truck more than 100 miles through mountainous terrain to refineries near Salt Lake City.
“It seems some people have misrepresented or misunderstood the nature of the waxy crude and how it will be transported,” said Heaton in a statement to The Denver Gazette.
“Uinta Basin waxy crude is a solid until heated above 110 degrees Fahrenheit,” said Heaton. “Therefore, the railroad operators will transport this commodity as a solid. In short, Uinta Basin waxy crude is not a flammable or hazardous liquid. It does not present an environmental concern if there were a derailment.”
The tank cars are loaded with heated liquid crude at the Uinta Basin terminal. The contents then quickly solidify to the consistency of a candlestick, then the railcars are reheated at the refinery terminal to remove it, said Heaton.
The solidified waxy crude floats on water, so in the unlikely event that a railcar ruptured and some of the product escaped into the river, it would float downstream and be easily trapped by the sort of cross-river absorbent booms typically used by hazardous materials response crews, he said.
In the event of a ruptured railcar that spilled solidified waxy crude on the ground, Heaton said it would not seep into the ground due to the temperature needed for it to transform back to a liquid, and that clean-up workers could simply pick up the material.
“An environmental catastrophe that project opponents seem to fear is highly unlikely,” said Heaton.
“Finally, the route through Colorado that Eagle County and other communities seem to be so concerned about has existed for over a century,” Heaton added. “Like all rail lines in the country, it already carries hazardous substances, which present much more risk than the Uinta Basin waxy crude.”
"The Governor continues to share a number of the concerns that our Colorado communities and Colorado's recreation and tourism industry have raised with the proposal," said Conor Cahill, press secretary for Gov. Jared Polis. "He continues to monitor this issue, and evaluate the state’s role given largely federal actions to date."
