New data on crude oil shipments released last week by the Department of Energy shows that there are very few oil trains taking the path of the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, undermining industry talking points that building Keystone XL would keep dangerous trains off the tracks.
The data, released in the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s first monthly report on crude by rail, confirms that the bulk of oil trains are traveling from the Bakken region in North Dakota to refineries in the mid-Atlantic and the Pacific Northwest, and that only about five percent of the oil moving by rail is coming to the Gulf Coast from Canada or the Midwest.
For years, the tar sands industry and their friends in Congress have attempted to capitalize on oil train derailments and explosions by arguing that the only way to prevent such accidents is to build Keystone XL, effectively holding American communities hostage with the threat of devastating train accidents.
But this information confirms that they have been presenting the public with a false choice. Building Keystone XL will not prevent deadly oil train disasters; it will merely add to the number of communities across the United States that are threatened by dangerous fossil fuel infrastructure.
This development also serves as further proof that the industry has no credible alternative to move its dirty tar sands, and without Keystone XL it will stay in the ground.