Big Oil companies’ push to extract and refine more extreme forms of oil has led to unprecedented transport of explosive and climate-polluting crude oil on our nation’s rail lines.
Crude oil train traffic grew 5,100 percent from 2008 to 2014 due to the rapid increase in fracking for oil in the Bakken shale fields of North Dakota and in tar sands oil extraction in Canada. An alarming number of derailments and explosions across North America has followed.
In Maryland, crude oil trains are a danger to communities near rail lines across the state and to Baltimore in particular. The oil industry has targeted Baltimore — the closest East Coast port to drilling sites in North Dakota — as a gateway to ship crude oil worldwide. The Trump administration is working to roll back the minimal safety regulations for crude oil trains put in place under the Obama administration and is actively expanding domestic and offshore drilling, making local protections against crude oil shipments even more critical.
Baltimore is standing up against Big Oil and making sure that our neighborhoods aren’t used as a gateway for extreme crude oil. Read more here:
