What would be the largest crude-by-rail transfer facility in southern California has caught the ire of local environmentalists and NIMBYs to boot. Back in September, Ken County officials gave the thumbs-up to oil product refiner and marketer Alon USA to remake an abandoned Bakersfield oil refinery into a refinery and receiving station for transporting crude oil from out of state. The facility will be largest in California.

County officials said they did a comprehensive environmental assessment before approving the project. However, that is not good enough for Earthjustice and the Sierra Club who filed a lawsuit against Kern County in an attempt to block the project. The mean greenie’s lawsuit asserts that not only didn’t Kern County do an adequate study, the county’s assessment failed to take into account the risks posed to local residents including (but not limited to) train derailments and the explosions resulting from them as well as the degradation of air quality. It does not matter that train derailments rarely occur, transporting oil has no effect on air quality and the Natural Resources Defense Council has said that train carbon emissions are very low when compared to other methods of transportation.

As the saying goes: As California goes, so does the nation. And the state is strangled with high taxes and regulations (many the result of green policies) ranking 47th in overall economic outlook for 2014 from a study done by the American Legislative Exchange Council. Projects like and oil refinery and receiving station would create local jobs for people in Kern County who are still seeking work.

In order for people to live they have to use their minds. The end result of people using their reason to live is capitalism since capitalism enables people to live and flourish. Environmentalists are repulsed by this idea and use the needs of nature as an excuse to halt industrial projects like this. I suppose in their perverse, cocooned world, groups like Earthjustice and the Sierra Club think that California residents don’t need jobs like this oil transfer and transportation facility would help create. They believe they are welcomed as liberators from a greedy company that transports oil that can be refined for Californians to power their modes of transportation in order for them to live.