Political Quotes

“Mr. President, in February of 2015, on Valentine's Day, a 100-car Canadian National Railway train hauling crude oil and petroleum distillates derailed in Ontario, Canada. The blaze burned for days. Two days later, a 109-car CSX oil train derailed and caught fire near Mount Carbon, WV, leaking oil into a Kanawha River tributary and burning a house to its foundation. The blaze burned for weeks. In November of last year, a dozen cars loaded with crude oil derailed from a Canadian Pacific Railway train, causing the evacuation of dozens of homes near Watertown, WI. Let's take a look at this chart. In all, there have been 32 crashes involving oil trains since 2013. So in less than 4 years, there have been 32 crashes. I just highlighted a few of them. We see a massive increase of crude oil transported by rail. Therefore, there is a corresponding concern because of the explosive nature of this product and the derailments resulting in explosions and infernos. Senator Wyden and I have been calling for reform. We are going to keep pressing. We need better information for first responders on the scheduling of these trains. We need better knowledge of where the foam that can be used to respond is stored. We need more foam stored in more places. We need faster implementation of the brake standards and faster implementation of the speed standards and faster implementation of the railcar tanker standards. But we have to understand what happened in every one of these wrecks.…”