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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (July 29, 2016)
Street Roots • July 29-August 4, 2016 News Page 4 Oregon’s man of the hour One of the most progressive lawmakers in a conservative U.S, Senate, Jeff Merkley is separating himself from the pack in the fight against global warming, the housing crisis and political corruption that might have done. I think one of the reasons that we’re way behind on oil train safety is that not that much oil was carried .S. Sen. Jeff Merkley has made a big by trains until the last 10 years. What we splash in his eight years in the have seen with the huge increase of oil Senate. One of the Senate’s most being produced is that there aren’t pipelines progressive lawmakers, he made headlines to carry it, so it’s being carried by trains. In when he became the only U.S. senator to one five-year period, there was a 40-fold endorse Bernie Sanders’ bid for the increase in trains. It’s a relatively new thing Democratic presidential nomination. to have these unit trains of oil crisscrossing A common thread undergirds many of the country. Merkley’s policy positions and statements, whether he is speaking about filibuster A.W.: The Mandate Oil Spill Inspections reform, the impact of the Citizens United and Emergency Rules (MOSIER) Act, which ruling on politics, global warming or income you and Sen. Ron Wyden recently introduced, equality: that our would require the National Transportation society and political Safety Board to investigate every major oil system need to train derailment, clarify the Federal Rail "We just got word that change, and quickly, Administration’s authority to place for the American globally, lune was the hottest moratoriums on train traffic after accidents, republic to best serve month on record ever. It is the and require the Department of Transportation to reduce the amount of volatile gases in the 14th month in a row that is the its citizens. Among crude oil transported by the trains. Why these hottest month on record. We environmentalists, he three requirements? Is it enough? have to treat this as a threat to has become J.M.: As we’ve really studied Mosier, we somewhat of a focal the lite on our planet." found several things that surprised me. champion for his U.S. SEN. JEFF MERKLEY (D-ORE.) strong protest of the First, the NTSB chose not to investigate. Then when I was told that the Federal Rail lax oversight of oil Administration was going to investigate, I train travel through found out (the Union Pacific Railroad) the Columbia Gorge, controls the investigation. They collect the spurred on by the derailment of an oil train evidence; they send it to a lab they choose. near Mosier in May. That makes no sense at all. You need to Amanda Waldroupe: It seems that oil have third-party control over the spills and oil train derailments have become investigation to have any legitimacy with commonplace. But if an airplane crashed or the public. If you don’t have that, you don’t another piece of infrastructure failed, it would have any assurance the real cause is be deemed unacceptable. Why do you think oil understood or that any remedies are spills seem to get a pass on this? undertaken that are appropriate to the problem. Jeff Merkley: Well, I think your analogy is a good one, and it’s one I’ve been using A.W.: You grew up in Roseburg, at the myself. If a commercial jetliner has a height of its timber economy, and know problem, all the similar planes are grounded the impact that a resource-extraction- ® until the problem is fully understood. It’s an based economy can have on a local extraordinarily rare event with oil trains; economy, in providing reliable, well we’ve been seeing month after month paying jobs. What needs to be done derailment after derailment. There is no to turn the renewable-energy sector thorough investigation that fully gets to the into that sort of powerhouse-type root of the problem - an application of the industry so that these lingering remedy before the trains run out again. loyalties to fossil fuels, oil, timber g That’s not what’s happening. One more and other natural resources , derailment, another derailment. That’s what decline? we need to change. That’s the impetus J.M.: We are seeing a huge behind the bill that I just introduced. growth in the jobs in the wind A.W.: Why do you think oil train sector and the solar power derailments persist? sectors. There are more renewable-energy jobs in J.M.: I imagine that because they’re Wyoming today than there S freight trains and they don’t have are coal jobs. Coal uses passengers aboard, they have not been massive machinery and viewed in the same framework. The trains employs very few do represent a risk to citizens. With the people. When you’re Mosier derailment, we were very fortunate, installing rooftop because no wind was blowing. If the wind solar or building wind fl had been blowing toward the schools just fields, there is a lot fl across the way, who knows what damage BY AMANDA WALDROUPE STAFF WRITER U more labor involved. We’re seeing a lot of growth in those jobs. We’d see even more if the fossil fuel industry didn’t put obstacles in the way. We should no longer be subsidizing the fossil fuel world. We should get rid of massive subsidies that they benefit from currently. Because they do so much less damage to the environment, the things we should be subsidizing are the solar and the wind (sectors). 3 There’s so S much at stake here. The scientists estimate that we really hit | catastrophic | consequences when temperatures ft warm by more than two degrees 1 Celsius. We are halfway there now. We just got word that globally, June was ■■I See MERKLEY, page 5 U<S. SENATE-PHOTO
