Rep. Joe Morelle is calling on a federal agency to reverse a new rule that allows railroad tankers carrying liquefied natural gas to roll through Monroe County.
The rule went into effect on Aug. 24, though it faces several legal challenges. It allows trains to carry up to 100 tankers of liquefied gas on American railroads, as long as the gas is stored in a specifically-designed tanker whose safety as a container for the gas has been largely untested.
“This dangerous gas would pass directly through my district in Upstate New York’s Monroe County, and pose a threat to the citizens living there as well as the environment and our first responders,” Morelle wrote in a Nov. 13 letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and Roger Batory, administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration.