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Background

Until 1985, Congressman Waxman was a strong supporter of the original Metro Rail route, which included stops on Wilshire Boulevard. Los Angeles needed an innovative mass transit system that could meet its future transportation needs and address growing air pollution problems. The methane gas explosion at the Ross Dress-for-Less store on March 25, 1985, however, raised serious safety questions for both the City of Los Angeles and Congress to consider. Everyone, especially the system´s supporters, had a special responsibility to take another look at the project in light of the explosion and the potential for a tunneling disaster.

On March 27, 1985, the Los Angeles City Council created a Task Force to investigate the explosion and fire, determine the cause of the accident, and recommend measures that could be adopted to avoid future incidents. Chaired by the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety, the Task Force included representatives from the L.A. City Fire Department, the L.A. City Department of Public Works, the California Division of Oil and Gas, and the Southern California Gas Company. In addition, two technical committees formed within the task Force (the Geological Committee and the Methane Control Committee) included private consultants who were experts in the oil and gas field.

The Task Force, which released its report on June 12, 1985, did not assess the safety of the Metro Rail system. It did, however, identify two methane risk zones: a high potential risk zone and a potential risk zone.

As Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee´s Subcommittee on Health and the Environment, Congressman Waxman convened a hearing in Los Angeles on June 14, 1985 to review the task force report and study whether it would be safe to build and operate a subway along the Wilshire Corridor, which was located within the risk areas.

This hearing included the testimony of community leaders and knowledgeable experts and it provided an extraordinary forum to exhange differing views. After sorting through the record and talking with experts, Congressman Waxman concluded that it was a senseless risk to tunnel in these areas.

When the legislation authorizing funding for the Metro Rail project reached the House floor in September 1985, Congressman Waxman offered an amendment that allowed the project to go forward so long as effective safety measures were adopted. That compromise:

(1) Provided funding for the subway as long as tunneling did not occur in the methane gas risk zones.

(2) Required the City Council Transportation Committee to appoint a panel of independent experts to review the safety of building the subway´s first 4.4 mile segment.

(3) Required a safety study of the entire subway system.

That compromise was enacted into law. The safety panel it established released its report on January 3, 1986. It identified thirteen major safety issues in the project´s design construction and operational plans that had not previously been considered. The panel´s work, and the supplemental views of two of its members, reinforced Congressman Waxman´s concerns and convinced him that it made no sense to tunnel through methane gas fields.

The 1986 report was troubling, especially since some of the alternative routes Metro Rail was considering to Wilshire would also go through methane gas areas. Congressman Waxman offered an amendment in August of that year that would have required the city to take a new look at the entire project. Unfortunately, that amendment was defeated by a 231-153 vote.

A few years after the federal prohibition was in place, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and others who supported tunneling along Wilshire Boulevard began to argue that new technologies could eliminate the risk of building the subway in this area and that Wilshire Boulevard was no more dangerous than alternative routes.

In response to these reports, Congressman Waxman initiated discussions with the MTA in 1993 to look into a review of a route that might be used to bring the Red Line back to Wilshire Boulevard. Because the MTA had always maintained that the methane gas never posed a safety problem, it was important that any study be undertaken by an outside, independent entity to ensure an objective result. In 1994, the MTA decided not to pursue a study. In 1998, Los Angeles voters approved a measure barring the use of local sales tax dollars for subway tunneling.

In 2004, the Los Angeles City Council passed a motion urging a reversal of laws banning the Red Line Extension. In February 2005, the MTA board also voted to renew discussions of subway expansion. In a meeting early in 2005, MTA’s CEO, Roger Snoble, renewed the MTA’s interest in a safety study, and Congressman Waxman expressed his support once again for an outside independent review. Congressman Waxman worked with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to select a five-member panel of experts, which made a unanimous determination in a November 2005 report that tunneling along Wilshire Boulevard can be done safely if new technologies and appropriate techniques are used.

On December 22, 2005, Congressman Waxman introduced legislation (H.R. 4653) to lift the federal tunneling prohibition. On September 20, 2006 , the House of Representatives passed H.R. 4653. Unfortunately, the Senate did not act on this legislation before the 109th Congress adjourned. The bill’s enactment will be a top priority for Congressman Waxman in the 110th Congress.