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Why is the White House listening to Big Oil about train safety while they continue to blow up our communities and put the planet at risk? Sign here to tell Obama's team to stop dragging their feet and ban the Bomb Trains!
Friend,
I really wish this weren't true. But it is. Just hours after 105 cars of dirty oil derailed in Illinois, sending another fireball blazing into the sky and thousands of gallons of oil into the river, Big Oil and railroad CEOs sat down for tea at the White House to tell them not to require better safety measures. AND THE WHITE HOUSE IS LISTENING!1
Look, I'm not surprised Big Oil is willing to risk people's lives and pollute our water, air and climate so they can make a quick buck. That's what we've come to expect from an industry that routinely kills workers in rig explosions,2 spills toxic waste into our water ways,3 plans it's future investments to destroy the climate4 and lobbies Congress to get a tax break for it all.
What's shocking about this news is that the White house, so far at least, has decided to listen to Big Oil instead of cracking down on the shipments of crude oil by rail - so called Bomb Trains.
It's time for an intervention. Click here to tell Barack Obama and his team to get off the slow line, and take express action to ban the Bomb Trains!
Last year Obama's team had a chance to crack down on Bomb Trains - which are more likely to explode because they're carrying volatile, tar-sands style oil from the Bakken fields or Canada. But the White House rejected the plan and let North Dakota regulators (who are known to be in the pockets of frackers and Big Oil barons)5 write the rules.6
And now, after a year of further study, they're still dragging their feet on basic safety and environmental protections, while even Canada (home to most of the dirty Tar Sands Oil) is moving ahead with tougher rules.7
I don't know what Big Oil is sayings, or paying, to keep shipping their dirty fracked oil through our towns. But I know we have to stop it fast - we've seen three derailments in the last month alone and spilled more oil from trains in the past few months than in the previous 40 years combined! If we don't act fast, we know another spill is coming soon. But if the White House takes decisive action to ban shipments of crude oil by rail, we'll slow down the extraction of dirty oil all over North America, and be one step closer to leaving fossil fuels in the ground where they belong.
Sign here to shake Obama out of his stupor and demand he act immediately to ban the Bomb Trains.
Thanks,
Drew and the ban the Bomb Train team
1 - Valerie Volcovici and Patrick Rucker, Rail industry pushes White House to ease oil train safety rules, Reuters, March 11, 2015
2 - Associated Press, 3 workers killed in West Texas oil field rig explosion, March 11, 2015
3 - Chris Megerian, California orders 12 oil-field wells shut to protect groundwater, LA Times, March 3, 2015
4 - James Gerken, Shell CEO Says Industry Needs To Be Less Aloof In Climate Change Conversation, The Huffington Post, February 12, 2015
5 - Deborah Sontag and Robert Gebloff, The Downside of the Boom, The New York Times, November 22, 2014
6 - Patrick Rucker,White House deferred to N. Dakota on oil train safety, Reuters, March 6, 2015
7 - Randall Palmer, Canada toughens oil tank car standards, wants even new ones out by 2025, Reuters, March 11, 2015 |
