Double Standard on Washington Rail Pt 1

Double Standard on Washington Rail Pt 1

Bob Larson
Bob Larson
I'm Bob Larson. Rail transportation is either "state of the art" or a threat that could cause cancer ... depending upon where you want to use it.

That's the double-standard pointed out recently by Washington Farm Bureau CEO Joh Stuhlmiller ...

JOHN STUHLMILLER ... "Rail, when it's used to haul commodities, in this case coal to port is looked at one way when there's another rail project that uses the same exact engine on the tracks, same footprint, if you will, but that was an acceptable use. Department of Transportation even was supportive and had commemorative engines and that sort of thing, but the same track and it's just simply because it was a project that was deemed as an appropriate one as opposed to the Millenium in Longview which was for commerce purposes, shipping bulk products overseas, that was not."

Stuhlmiller says all this is happening as farmers look to export more of their crops through increasingly crowded Northwest ports...

JOHN STUHLMILLER ... "That means you gotta have port capacity and to have port capacity you've to have world-class rail, you have to have all the infrastructure needed, and you have to have the deep-water ports that enable you to reach the Pacific Rim, largely for us. So, the more of those facilities that are open to be able to ship, it increases the competition, it draws the prices down, it makes products flow and that's what we're after. So, to pick apart one project simply because of what's going is just a double standard."

Listen tomorrow for more on the state's contrasting principles when it comes to rail.

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