Anti energy left tries to thwart transportation of oil

IBD:

The Obama regime plans to slap railroads with costly new rules for shipping shale oil, arguing that it's unsafe. But frackers have turned to rail mainly because the president won't approve safer pipelines.

If shipping crude by rail is as dangerous as the administration says it is, it has only itself and its extreme environmental agenda to blame.

Absent the blocked Keystone XL Pipeline, more and more North Dakota frackers are opting to use rail to get their crude to refineries and ports in the U.S., a much riskier (and costlier) alternative.

As pipeline growth lags, rail shipping has boomed. Right now, 68% of the Bakken formation region's oil is moved by rail vs. 25% three years ago. Thanks largely to the shale-oil boom, railroads shipped about 400,000 tank cars of crude oil last year, up from 9,500 in 2008.

Increased rail traffic has led to an uptick in oil tanker accidents, including April's 17-tanker derailment in Virginia in which 25,000 gallons of crude exploded. Though no deaths have resulted from recent U.S. accidents, green alarmists are comparing oil tankers to "bombs."
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The anti transportation moves are in support of the anti energy left's policy of creating artificial scarcity of oil in gas so they can push inefficient alternatives.   The opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline is nonsensical on any rational basis.