The Federal Railroad Administration has denied a two-point-three billion federal loan for the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad’s planned coal train project.
The railroad wanted to add track to the Powder River Basin coal fields in Wyoming and upgrade it’s existing line in South Dakota and Minnesota. The six billion project would involve building about 280 miles of new track and upgrading 600 miles of existing track so trains could haul coal for power plants.
Minnesota interests strongly apposed the project.
The Federal Railroad Administration says the risk was too great that the railroad could not repay the loan.
DM&E President Kevin Schieffer of Sioux Falls said the company is reviewing the decision. He says it’s too soon to say whether the decision dooms the project.
Minnesota’s Governor Tim Pawlenty called the decision “really good news”.
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
I found this story on the web site of KELO AM in Sioux Falls.
It’s bad news for the DM&E and I think it stinks.
CANADIANPACIFIC2816
Hmmmmm…
A Blue State pro-Amtrak RINO (Joseph H. Boardman from New Yawk) is the sole arbiter for turning down a badly needed expansion of our nation’s freight rail capacity, one that just happens to be mostly located in a Red State. And we’re supposed to be suprised because…why?
We all knew this was coming. The level of corruption engendered by the mating of the current rail oligarchy with Big Government is simply too much of a hurdle for those not blessed in that vein. It’s okay to pour billions of dollars over the years into that embarrasment known as Amtrak, an entity that is nothing short of a cancerous mole on the American economy. It’s okay to give grants (not loans) amounting to millions of dollars to reigning members of the Class I oligarchy for projects that only benefit them. But God forbid we help out our smaller business venturers who are willing to take the risk we all need them to take.
The blatant irony (dare I say hypocrasy) is the Joseph H. Boardman has testified before Congress regarding the “critical” need to expand our nation’s freight infrastructure, particularly in the Powder River Basin…
http://www.fra.dot.gov/downloads/pubaffairs/capacity_final.pdf
Of course, that same testimony of Joseph Boardman is bereft of the word “competition” when discussing the need for more rail capacity, so I suppose one shouldn’t be too suprised that Mr. Boardman would deny the very thing he pretends to support to a group that actually was willing to do something tangible to bring on board that same capacity enhancement, just because that group was not one of the 7 Class I’s.
This latest example of short-sightedness is just another nail in the coffin of the ostensible desire for energy independence.
You just dont understand!.. This is about Eletrict Power Monopoly and New York Opposes any avantage the west would get in the way of cheaper Electicity. New York as aprt of being the Empire State produces like 1/5 of the juice in the US. Between Niagara and a number of huge coal and nuke plants we power the US. However we pay the higest rates in the nation…Go figure??