Canada is considering measures to treat crude oil as a high-risk, dangerous product that would require rail shippers to have government-approved emergency-response plans in place, a government official said Friday. The initiative would be part of a broad package of measures the Canadian government will likely unveil early in 2014 to boost rail safety, the official said. The transport of oil by rail has been under heightened scrutiny since last July, when the derailment of a train in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, killed 47 people. That train, operated by Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway Inc., was carrying crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken region. Preliminary findings by Canadian transportation-safety regulators suggested the oil carried on those derailed railcars was more flammable than its shippers originally indicated. Investigators also suggested the amount of braking force applied to the train, which was left unattended outside Lac-Mégantic, was insufficient for the grade on which […]