Mayor signs bill banning transport of toxic rail shipments through D.C.
Mayor Anthony Williams on Tuesday signed emergency legislation from the District of Columbia Council to bar rail operator CSX from routing trains carrying chlorine and other toxic materials over the city's rails.
During a press briefing on the bill Wednesday, which the council passed Feb. 1, the mayor vowed to defend the law against a challenge already filed by the rail company.
"The protection of your people, your property and your city is of paramount importance," he said.
The mayor's signature follows more than a year of debate among city leaders about how best to prevent the transport of gases such as chlorine, which has a history of use as a chemical weapon, through the city of 500,000 people and within blocks of highly sensitive federal buildings seen as top terrorist targets.
Williams said the city Transportation Department would take "the next few days" to develop rules implementing the legislation. The department's associate director, Lars Etzkorn, said a system of permits under the law, which is designed to effectively ban the shipments by requiring permits that can be obtained only in rare circumstances, is expected to be published in the city register by March 4.
The emergency law is to remain in effect for 90 days. Ban sponsors have also initiated a permanent version of the legislation, as well as a temporary version of the permanent bill. The latter, which the council will next take up in the coming weeks, could add 225 days to the 90-day emergency ban.
It remains unclear whether federal power to pre-empt the city's laws will come into play. Also unclear is the eventual effect of a CSX petition filed last week with the U.S. Transportation Department's Surface Transportation Board seeking to eliminate the ban.
The company alleges the ban would violate the constitutional guarantee of interstate commerce and would endanger "the comprehensive scheme of federal regulation of hazardous materials."
Washington Attorney General Robert Spagnoletti is gearing up to fend off such challenges, Williams said Wednesday. "The attorney general is prepared to defend the law in court as well as may become necessary," the mayor said.
Council members have said CSX told the panel at a closed-door meeting Nov. 4 that it was voluntarily rerouting the trains to avoid the city. Ban backers nevertheless insisted on a formal legal measure requiring such measures and now say the company's regulatory challenge indicates it may have continued bringing the trains through Washington after all.
According to a footnote in the CSX petition, the company last year "instituted a voluntary reroute of loaded cars carrying" toxic-by-inhalation substances "that would have traversed its [Interstate] 95 line through the District of Columbia." Ban sponsor Kathy Patterson said today that the footnote, along with related statements, could indicate CSX stopped transporting the materials on the north-south line through Washington but maintained transports using an east-west line that passes through other parts of the city.
"That's the kind of sleight-of-hand that underscores the need for the law," Patterson said in an interview.
U.S. Representative Edward Markey, D-Mass., on Wednesday said he plans to reintroduce federal legislation from last year that would route hazardous materials shipments away from sensitive areas, require that tanker cars be strengthened against punctures and organize training for personnel who would response to an incident involving a training carrying toxic substances.
"D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams signed the first local measure aimed at addressing the Bush administration's failure to secure our cities and towns from terrorist attacks on shipments of extremely hazardous materials," Markey said in a statement. "The D.C. Council bill is the first, but it will not be the last, legislation of its kind."