{"id":12974,"date":"2015-10-03T09:39:39","date_gmt":"2015-10-03T14:39:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=12974"},"modified":"2015-10-03T09:39:39","modified_gmt":"2015-10-03T14:39:39","slug":"pre-emption-how-and-why-rail-companies-are-above-the-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=12974","title":{"rendered":"Pre-emption: How and Why Rail Companies Are Above The Law"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Pre-emption: How and Why Rail Companies Are Above The Law<\/a><\/h3>\n

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CSX<\/span>\u00a0is one of the major rail companies that is profiting from the\u00a0oil-by-rail boom<\/a>\u00a0led by North Dakota\u2019s Bakken crude oil. On September 28th, a day that is apparently national\u00a0\u201cgood neighbor day,\u201d\u00a0<\/a>CSX<\/span>\u00a0broadcast the following message on\u00a0Twitter.<\/p>\n

\"good<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Which is a nice message. But\u00a0CSX<\/span>\u00a0and the rest of the rail industry can turn into a horrible neighbor for many communities across the country. Why? Because as rail companies they are essentially above the law due to a legal doctrine known as\u00a0\u201cpre-emption.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pre-emption means that rail companies are not subject to any local or state laws. So if they want to build a new propane transloading facility near a school or neighborhood, they can. And\u00a0CSX<\/span>\u00a0and others in the industry\u00a0do.<\/p>\n

A new article by the\u00a0New England Center for Investigative Reporting<\/a>\u00a0(NECIR<\/span>) details how pre-emption has allowed for the construction of oil and gas transloading facilities on rail company property with little to no oversight in communities like Grafton,\u00a0Massachusetts.<\/p>\n

In Grafton, the owner of a small railroad constructed what is now the largest rail propane facility in the state. No construction permits were acquired. No environmental assessments completed. And as\u00a0NECIR<\/span>\u00a0reports, the rail company\u2019s neighbors weren\u2019t very happy about any of\u00a0this.<\/p>\n

Residents were dumbfounded: The location was in the middle of a residential neighborhood, less than 2,000 feet from an elementary school and atop the town\u2019s water\u00a0supply.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That is the reality of pre-emption. As we\u2019ve reported on DeSmog since oil trains started derailing and exploding, pre-emption applies to all areas of rail\u00a0operations.<\/p>\n

Rail companies believe they are not subject to\u00a0\u201cright to know\u201d laws\u00a0<\/a>regarding the transportation of dangerous materials through\u00a0communities.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pre-emption: How and Why Rail Companies Are Above The Law CSX\u00a0is one of the major rail companies that is profiting from the\u00a0oil-by-rail boom\u00a0led by North Dakota\u2019s Bakken crude oil. On September 28th, a day that is apparently national\u00a0\u201cgood neighbor day,\u201d\u00a0CSX\u00a0broadcast the following message on\u00a0Twitter. Which is a nice message. But\u00a0CSX\u00a0and the rest of the rail […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,6],"tags":[184,9553,5317,3745,2466,4618,9551,9552],"class_list":["post-12974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","category-liberty","tag-crude-oil","tag-csx","tag-desmog-blog","tag-law","tag-oil-by-rail","tag-oversight","tag-rail","tag-rail-industry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12974"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12977,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12974\/revisions\/12977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}