Following Dane County, Wisconsin’s vote to require Enbridge Corp. to take out $125 million in insurance against a possible spill for its proposed pipeline expansion of Line 61, how could community-based interception affect the future of pipeline projects nationwide?
When Michigan’s Enbridge pipeline ruptured in 2010, the clean-up bill was $1 billion. It took a billion dollars and three years to clean it up. It is only prudent for Dane County to say, “Let’s make sure that Enbridge has what we think is the right amount of insurance.” It’s the polluter pays principle, and it’s that any business should fully incorporate the economic risk of its activities.
While towns and cities fine the railroads for blocking traffic and force them to buy insurance and states tax them for each substandard tanker, and while both fight in court to defend the constitutionality of their sanctions, the trains keep rolling and the FRA is still their regulator.
Which leaves the FRA, charged with enforcing the new regulations, as the agency with the most clout to affect safe transportation of crude oil. The FRA gets most of its input from the railroads they oversee. Sign the attached petition and add a comment while you’re add it to change their mindset from being partners with the railroads, to being protectors of the sixteen million people who live in the oil trains’ blast zone. http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/enforce-railroad-health?source=s.fwd&r_by=1718159
Would this have happened if we had Keystone?
Following Dane County, Wisconsin’s vote to require Enbridge Corp. to take out $125 million in insurance against a possible spill for its proposed pipeline expansion of Line 61, how could community-based interception affect the future of pipeline projects nationwide?
When Michigan’s Enbridge pipeline ruptured in 2010, the clean-up bill was $1 billion. It took a billion dollars and three years to clean it up. It is only prudent for Dane County to say, “Let’s make sure that Enbridge has what we think is the right amount of insurance.” It’s the polluter pays principle, and it’s that any business should fully incorporate the economic risk of its activities.
While towns and cities fine the railroads for blocking traffic and force them to buy insurance and states tax them for each substandard tanker, and while both fight in court to defend the constitutionality of their sanctions, the trains keep rolling and the FRA is still their regulator.
Which leaves the FRA, charged with enforcing the new regulations, as the agency with the most clout to affect safe transportation of crude oil. The FRA gets most of its input from the railroads they oversee. Sign the attached petition and add a comment while you’re add it to change their mindset from being partners with the railroads, to being protectors of the sixteen million people who live in the oil trains’ blast zone.
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/enforce-railroad-health?source=s.fwd&r_by=1718159