If you want to know whether an oil train is going by your community, just go down to the railroad tracks and watch for it. But don't ask the railroad or the state. In many cases, they don't think you can be trusted with this secret.
"The Senate broke a logjam late Wednesday to advance a bipartisan highway bill despite several top Democrats voting to filibuster the package."
"The U.S. Department of Transportation warned railroads that they must continue to notify states of large crude oil shipments after several states reported not getting updated information for as long as a year."
"A six-year highway bill crafted by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) was in limbo Tuesday after lawmakers rejected a motion to move forward with the measure in a 41-56 vote."
"A train derailment in rural eastern Montana spilled 35,000 gallons (132,489 liters) of crude oil and forced the evacuation of about 30 people, a U.S. official said on Friday in an email to state officials."
"Honda has earned a new Guinness World Record for fuel efficiency. In a 25 day drive across all of the European Union’s contiguous countries, a Honda Civic Tourer 1.6 i-DTEC diesel averaged 2.82 liters per 100km (100.31 miles per gallon)."
"A Swiss man attempting to circumnavigate the globe with an aircraft powered only by the sun's energy landed in Hawaii on Friday, after a record-breaking five-day nonstop solo flight across the Pacific Ocean from Japan."
"A CSX train car carrying hazardous material derailed and caught fire in the middle of the night in eastern Tennessee, forcing the evacuation of thousands of people and sending dozens to the hospital with respiratory issues and nausea."
MARYVILLE, Tenn. -- "A CSX tanker car carrying acrylonitrile caught fire just after midnight Thursday morning forcing the evacuation of more than 5,000 people in an expanding evacuation zone last listed as a 2-mile radius around the site."
The mandate for disclosure of oil train information set by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) in a May 2014 emergency order still exists. But getting that information will be harder — and a battle that must be fought by reporters and public safety advocates on a state-by-state basis.
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