Fracking has triggered an oil boom in North Dakota! The new technology has made vast reserves of oil previously locked up in the state’s Bakken shale formations accessible to drillers. However, there aren’t enough pipelines in the region to transport this immense quantity of oil to other states to be refined into gasoline. Instead, companies have chosen to transport the highly flammable and toxic oil by railroad, which has led to some disasters including the explosion of a train in Quebec that killed 47 people in July of last year.
The federal government has warned companies about the risks of shipping the oil by train. The industry has been under public and Congressional pressure to develop new ways to transport the oil safely.
Railroad workers and their lawyers say the federal government should step up its efforts to combat what they call another serious threat to rail safety.
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