HOUSE OVERSIGHT 028627 In July, the Texas transportation department decided to convert 83 miles of state road in six oil-boom counties from pavement to gravel, to reduce repair costs and slow traffic. Trucks filled with Eagle Ford crude are also heading 100 miles west to a barge canal. The first barge of crude departed in September 2011, heading south toward the Gulf of Mexico and refineries near Houston. Now the canal moves 1.6 million barrels a month, says Jennifer Stastny, executive director of the Port of Victoria. "It's like putting your 5-year-old to bed one night and he wakes up the next morning as a 16-year-old, with the appetite and demands of a 16-year-old," she says. In North Dakota, trains move 69% of the state's 800,000 barrels a day of crude, according to state figures. Energy companies say they value rail's ability to deliver crude to the highest-paying markets. But the deadly runaway crude train crash in Canada's Quebec province in July, which incinerated a small town and killed at least 47 people, highlighted the risks of the mile-long crude trains crisscrossing the country. The U.S. government is imposing new regulations on oil shipments by rail. Some state regulators wonder if their local efforts leave them prepared for a train accident, in part because federal railroad rules pre-empt state and local control over trains. In Washington state, "we can't say [to train operators] you have to have oil-spill contingency plans in order to operate," says Curt Hart, a spokesman for the state's Department of Ecology. "We do that for oil tankers, barges, large commercial vessels and refineries." Home to five refineries, the state levies a per-barrel tax on crude delivered by tankers and barges, which pays for spill- response officials and inspectors. The tax doesn't apply to rail shipments. The American Association of Railroads says it is prepared for growing crude shipments because it has long carried hazardous cargoes. In 2008, major U.