Increase in Oil Trains See Opposition

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Numerous speakers have told a state Senate committee that they oppose the rapid increase in railcars carrying crude oil from the Bakken fields of North Dakota and Montana through the state. The Senate Energy, Environment and Telecommunications Committee met in Spokane on Tuesday to take testimony on a bill that seeks to improve the safety of those oil shipments. But nearly all the members of the public who spoke attacked the bill as too friendly to the oil and railroad industries. Numerous people referred to last year's explosion of a rail car in Quebec, Canada, that killed 47 people, and worried that could happen in Washington. Mike Peterson of The Lands Council, a Spokane environmental group, referred to the oil tankers as "bomb cars."