Regulations on new Longview Rail Terminal

I'm Bob Larson. A proposed rail terminal at the Port of Longview that would boost volume and efficiency of Ag exports is being threatened with overregulation by the Department of Ecology.

Washington Policy Center's Madi Clark says the proposed regulations included in the environmental impact statement by the DOE are related to the coal that would move through the terminal, but would negatively impact everyone ...

MADI CLARK ... "That ability for Washington to increase our infrastructure for trade will allow us to increase our infrastructure for trade for all the other industries including agriculture. And because we move so much across our rails that are related to the farm product, we grow in Washington, we ship through Washington, we need facilities like Millennium Bulk Terminal to be considered and to be allowed into Washington State."

Clark says the catch? The DOE wants the terminal to pay for a portion of the carbon emissions generated for the entire life cycle of the coal, even coal headed to, say, China ...

MADI CLARK ... "But now, the Army Corps of Engineers, they have stuck with a more traditional legal guidance that they have to say NO, we don't need this life-cycle requirement for the Millennium Bulk Terminal. We actually are going to look at this as the Millennium Bulk Terminal, this is their environmental impact on the area that they are building and the area that they are effecting, not on the full life-cycle of that coal."

More than 36 percent of freight that moves across

Washington's rail system is farm product, making it the top commodity shipped by rail.