Madsen deflected spill question

Sue Lani Madsen did a great job of deflecting attention from the most relevant question surrounding the derailment and spillage of Bakken crude in Mosier. Who is responsible for creating the risks, and how do we reduce it or eliminate them?

These risks are not immutable, unyielding facts of life. They reflect the choice of profit margins over safety. It’s railroads and oil producers externalizing part of their costs of operation onto every community between them and their customer.

Oil shipment by truck, pipeline or rail can be made safer. But that reduces profits. Federal regulators are supposed to protect us from this cost shifting of risks onto communities. But the supply siders in Congress have spent three decades holding fire sales for control of these federal agencies with great success. So transporters get 20-plus years to replace their fleets of unsafe tankers. Where’s the outcry for congressional hearings on this abuse of federal power?

It isn’t just “choose your poison,” as Madsen says. It’s find out who’s trying to poison you and stop them. Let’s start with a Republican Congress intent on privatizing everything that puts the profit margins of billionaires above public safety.

Jim Wavada

Spokane