Environmentalists and big government continue to make it more difficult to get approval to build pipelines, so Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., is introducing stricter regulations on oil-by-rail tankers. Thanks?
There’s no other alternative, really — America’s 95-year-old Jones Act, a law loved by Democrats and unions, makes moving oil by ship elaborately expensive. If you are moving U.S.-produced oil to U.S. markets, rail is the only option short of some silly side-trip through the European refining industry.
Opposing Keystone only gave new life to oil-by-rail. The International Energy Agency predicts that North America will spend $2.5 trillion on oil infrastructure over the next 20 years. Keystone would have cost 0.3 percent as much. Most consider pipelines safer for transporting oil.
Polls showed the public wanted the pipeline; labor liked the jobs. The millions of barrels rumbling through America’s residential neighborhoods aboard mile-long trains are a result of impractical politics based upon President Obama’s true policy.