Sen. Franken Proposes Oil Treatment

Minnesota Senator Al Franken is trying to make train transportation of Bakken oil safer in Minnesota.

He has several ideas that would reduce the chance of an explosion if a train were to derail. The Senator thinks trains should route around communities to better the chances for a response to an accident.

He also proposed measures that would treat the oil to make it less volatile before it is shipped.

“What makes it so volatile is that it’s a light crude and it contains a certain amount of what are called natural gas liquids and those can be siphoned off and it can be done at the well,” Franken says.

Franken wrote a letter to the Federal Railroad Administration urging them to take whatever actions necessary to address the oil issue.