I assume that they mean that the identity of the people running the Tor relays can be known. For example, if you run a relay from your own physical server, then your ISP knows who pays for that static IP. If you run it from a VPS or cloud, the company knows who's paying for that server.
But if you live in a liberal democracy, none of that should be an issue as far as I know, specially if you're running a non-exit node.
Most cloud/VPS providers require some form of payment. If you know of one that doesn't for any significant workload, please let me know :).
The payment providers require KYC. Bitcoin operates using a public ledger that raises privacy concerns as well.
Liberal democracy does not insulate one from responsibility for or accusations of nefarious activity.
Therefore, since it is reasonable to say that a tor node cannot be easily operated anonymously; doing so exposes the operator to some level of personal legal scrutiny that can be inconvenient and time consuming to address at best.
Authorities have been known to seize relays and exit nodes and repurpose them to their own use.
More people might run a Tor relay if there was a way to do so without compromising their privacy.