Design It Before
the System Breaks

The Basin Produces It.
The Highway Carries Too Much of It.

The Uintah Basin produces a crude slate that’s strategically valuable but logistically difficult. For decades, that challenge has been pushed onto Highway 40 — thousands of truck movements carrying raw, volatile product through rural communities and mountain corridors.

That approach doesn’t scale. It doesn’t meet modern safety standards. And it won’t survive a 2034 stress test.

By 2034, Utah needs to demonstrate it can move energy safely without overloading highways, maintain air quality during inversion conditions, protect water resources during industrial activity, and respond rapidly to emergencies with fixed infrastructure — not improvised response.

Rail Is Risk Reduction.
Not Job Elimination.

I want to say this directly to the truck drivers who move this economy: you are essential to the Basin. Nothing about rail changes that. Rail handles the long haul. Trucks handle last-mile, local work. That keeps drivers working and reduces the hazardous exposure on canyon roads.

BackRunner is a systems standard — not a slogan. By 2034 it means:

• ✓Uinta Railway operating — crude moves by hardened rail, not default highway trucking
• ✓Refineries near production — not hundreds of miles away
• ✓Trucks shifted off Highway 40 — focused on last-mile, lower-risk work
• ✓Emergency response centered on fixed facilities — not mobile exposure
• ✓Water reused for operations — not drawn fresh from stressed basins

Refineries Belong
Near the Production.

The national conversation jumps from production to exports and skips the most fragile link: refining capacity. We don’t need mega-refineries in metro areas. We need right-sized, basin-appropriate facilities that match the crude, minimize transport distance, and integrate water reuse from the start.

In the Uintah Basin, local refining isn’t an expansion of risk. It’s a concentration of responsibility — fixed, regulated, designed for emergency preparedness.

• Match refinery design to crude characteristics
• Minimize transport distance — keep value in the Basin
• Modern emissions controls built in — not added later
• Closed-loop water reuse — no fresh draw from stressed basins
• Emergency preparedness designed in — not bolted on after the fact

The Seams Are the Problem.

Energy systems don’t fail at the core — they fail where one system hands off to another. Right now the seams in District 20 are exactly where the pressure is highest.

Will We Design It —
or Wait Until It Breaks?

Global supply pressure, domestic production growth, and shifting crude mixes are all pointing toward higher throughput. The real question isn’t whether we’ll need new refining capacity. It’s whether we design it before the system forces a crisis.

2034 gives us a planning horizon. BackRunner gives us a framework. The Uintah Basin gives us a real-world proving ground. What would it look like if refining, rail, air quality, emergency response, and water reuse were planned together — on purpose?

That’s the conversation I’m inviting.