(Source: New York Times, February 4, 2014)
NEW YORK — Federal regulators said on Tuesday that they had fined three companies for mislabeling the type of crude oil they were transporting. The penalties — a total of $93,000 — were the first from surprise inspections begun after since a series of accidents in the last year underscored the hazard of transporting highly flammable oil by rail.
Inspectors from the Transportation Department started conducting random tests last summer to ensure that producers, shippers and railroad companies properly labeled oil from the Bakken shale region of North Dakota. The inspections started after a train carrying crude oil derailed and killed 47 people in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, and these are the first fines from them.
Full story: New York Times