Anti energy left expands its opposition to rail carrying Canadian oil sands

Bloomberg/Fuel Fix:

Environmentalists opposed to the Keystone XL pipeline are expanding their fight against imports of Canadian heavy crude oil by trying to block rail projects that offer another way for it to enter the U.S.

“Debating rail or pipelines is like debating which kind of poison you want,” Daniel Kessler, a spokesman for 350.org, an environmental group, said in an interview. “There is a substantive effort under way in many places to block rail.”

Environmental groups including 350.org oppose Keystone because they say it would promote development of oil sands, a type of crude that releases more greenhouse gases in its production and refining than other forms of oil. Canada, the biggest foreign supplier of oil to the U.S., has lobbied hard for the pipeline to promote growth of its energy industry.

Delays: TransCanada pushes Keystone XL pipeline start to 2016

The use of trains to carry crude is increasing in both the U.S. and Canada as production outstrips the capacity of pipelines to transport the bounty. In Canada, producers are rushing to secure rail cars while U.S. President Barack Obama reviews Keystone, a $5.4 billion pipeline TransCanada Corp. wants to build to link the oil sands in Alberta with refineries on the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.

Shipping the Alberta oil by rail benefits lines including Canadian National Railway Company , the Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp., a unit of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

Opponents of oil sands are targeting rail terminal projects in California, Washington state and elsewhere and pushing federal regulators to mandate expensive retrofits to tanker cars that could impede efforts by producers to expand their fleets. The campaign represents a threat to Canadian oil, which together with natural gas is Canada’s largest export to the U.S.
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I suspect their push for regulations are in bad faith and primarily intended to kill the movement of oil to market.  These people are against all forms of traditional energy and favor less efficient alternatives that will drive up prices and hamper our mobility.  We should oppose these efforts to lower the US standard of living to deal with their carbon phobias.