— from Washington State Democrats —
Sen. Kevin Ranker, D-Orcas Island, released the statement below following Wednesday’s [April 15] passage of an oil train safety bill that falls short of critical protections for communities and valuable information for first responders:
“Someone said that Washingtonians will be safer under this bill. The truth is Washingtonians won’t be as safe as they should be under this bill.
“Our No. 1 job should be to protect the public. Today we missed that opportunity.
“We had the opportunity to actually secure the safety of our communities and give our first responders the information they need to respond if there is an accident.
“A failed amendment would have allowed people and first responders to know the type of oil being transported. This is of serious concern because the much more volatile Bakken crude is consistently at the center of the most catastrophic oil disasters.
“This bill also ignores protections which must be in place for oil transported on Puget Sound, despite a continued increase in tanker traffic.
“Oil spills and train disasters happen seemingly all the time. Literally millions of gallons of Bakken crude rumbles through our cities and towns daily.
“We must give our communities and first responders every chance to prepare themselves for a disaster. Today we failed to do that.”
So, maybe it’s time We, the People urge the Governor to Veto this Bill? Thanks Kevin, for doing your best!
Spirit Eagle
Yes, Thank You Kevin! for standing in integrity and Truth while you are surrounded by deceit and graft. That takes true courage. (: !
If you want to solve the problem of the crude-oil carrying rail cars, tell the current occupant of the White House to stop delaying the approval of the Keystone Pipeline. The vast majority of the oil the nation is seeing in railway cars is because the Democrats have blocked approval of the pipeline. Modern pipelines are inherently safer than moving all of those rail cars around.