You cannot break laws even if you think the ends justify the means.

@1: However, you should break laws if you think the ends justify the means. The two statements are not incongruous.

Who cares? No local or state law can stop oil trains. If you think not, then read Chapter 33. It specifically states that local and state municipalities cannot regulate train traffic. Or what travels on those tracks.

Don't say "Uh-Uh, No Way You Asshole" until you've actually read it.

And no, I'm not providing a link. If you REALLY want to know. Then you can find it yourself.

@3: Yeah, the case law on this has already been established, and the ICCTA is very clear on this.

It is the same thing as state governors declaring refugees are welcome/not welcome in their state. It sounds nice, but they do not have that authority at all.

Not saying this is a good or bad thing, but the train has already left the station on this particular issue.

@3 - My entire knowledge of this story comes from this blog post and it seems like your amazing point is totally irrelevant to this trial.

It's like drones spying in your backyard. Courts can call it legal all you want, and say you can't shoot them down if they spy on your teen daughter but few juries will convict you for shooting them down.

Same thing with Fire Trains

So if not by train, how are we to move our oil? Pipeline? Oh wait - the enviro-fascists won't allow that either. So how?

@3 This trial has nothing to do with passing new laws regulating train traffic or common carrier freight. #5 is correct - your point is irrelevant. The case is simply to decide whether or not the necessity defense applies to the Delta 5, who readily admit that they did indeed block rail traffic on that day.

There are a number of ways oil train traffic could be decreased or eliminated in Washington state. One popular idea is getting Inslee (or the given decision maker on a particular project) to reject permits for new oil terminals and refineries. Fewer export points and storage facilities would result in less oil being shipped through our state.

This fight is far from over.

Not that many decades ago it was also thought that "No local or state law can slavery." "No local or state law can stop racial discrimination." The list goes on and on. A lot of people will be singing a different tune when one of these things blows up in Seattle.

Their "protest" is moot, as it won't stop anything. And they aren't raising awareness, they're Grandstanding. Necessity defense won't work as their "protest" is against something that is legal.

Just because those 5 don't like it, doesn't make it a necessity for them or the rest of the state.

The fossil fuel industry in the US (and some other countries) is in trouble with the price of a barrel of oil down to $30 from a high of $130+ in a little more than a year. China is rapidly deploying renewable energy: solar pv and wind. Their industrial sector is slowing so demand for this oil is very uncertain. We're witnessing US fossil fuels in panic mode, a very dangerous mode both for communities and for stockholders. Here's a link to oil train accidents in the US: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CVZl8FhVEAAh… Notice how many there have been in W Washington. Fortunately no explosions or fires. With increased oil trains that is not likely to continue to be the case.

Sydney; Thanks for continuing to write on this. I saw a post that the judge in the trial instructed to jury to ignore all expert testimony. Kangaroo court or what?

Gawd, the stench of right wing loons is strong today. This "won't change anything"? No more than some Black kids sitting at a Woolworth's counter "wouldn't change anything".

US Oil and Gas industry is contracting, Solar is growing fast: a single US renewable energy sector — solar — added 35,000 jobs during 2015 growing to more than 208,000. By comparison, the entire US oil and gas extraction industry composed just 199,000 jobs at the start of 2015 and by its end had contracted by 14,000 to 185,000.

http://www.thesolarfoundation.org/nation… Solar jobs grew by 20% in a year and are expected to grow by nearly 15% this year. Job growth is 12 times the employment growth rate of the entire US economy.

http://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag211.htm#ia… US Oil and gas jobs dropped by 35,000 to 185,000. With the Saudi's dumping oil on the world market and Iran expected to ship 2 million barrels this year the glut may force the price to $20 per barrel. Fracking and tar sands oil are profitable only if the price exceeds $80 per barrel.

@11, Oh, I get it. You're grasping at straws to justify dismissing these protests as irrelevant. Are you aware that "grandstanding" is basically the same as "raising awareness," just with a negative connotation? It's quite obvious, but both the blockade and trial got media coverage and therefore most definitely did "raise awareness."

What's really pathetic is how you are grasping at straws to defend a fundamentally homicidal industry. Oil companies are responsible for tens of thousands of deaths a year - proxy wars fought on their behalf by the US government, cancer-causing pollution from the extraction/refining/consumption of oil, straight-up assassination of union leaders in the Global South, and so on.

@Ballard Simp, Gawd the stench of left wing loons is strong today.

@16, grandstanding= awareness?
Have you ever heard of a dictionary. Webster, Oxford?

@16, you probably own a car too. Or rude in one quite often. Therefore you contribute to your "argument" against the oil industry.

@9 Thank you, Paula, for being among those remaining with common sense. Agreed: this fight is far from over, despite bullying tactics from the fossil fuel industry or idiotic comments from trolls.

A guy blows up a Planned Parenthood center and raises the "necessity defense" because he maintains that abortion is murder. Should the jury get to decide if 1. abortion is murder and, if so, 2. that the guy was justified to stop murder? What kind of jury selection would that involve? Does the guy get to call "expert" witnesses to testify that a fetus is a human being?