Comment EI-19744
Received or sent (printed as 1/9/2013)
In the 1970s when I was a Special Assistant Attorney General representing the Montana Public Service Commission (PSC), it intervened in a case before the Federal Power Commission in opposition to a petition to export natural gas from Montana to Minnesota. Our premise was that Minnesota was wasting such gas on many outdoor decorative gas lamps (the fuel from 8 of which would heat a home for a year). This Tongue River railroad would create a similar situation. It should not be built because it will allow coal to be burned in inefficient Chinese coal-fired electric generation stations whose air pollution control standards do not meet those in the US and because China is not sufficiently committed to reducing greenhouse gases. The most recent consensus of climate scientists posted yesterday at www.realclimate.org indicates the IPCC IV report was low in calculating probable sea level rise by as much as 74% -- meaning a rise by century end of 2 meters rather than 1. Since this railroad would facilitate that sea level rise, causing untold displacement of coastal communities (i.e., fratricide), the railroad should not be built. Nobody sets their own house on fire to keep temporarily warm. For when that glow is gone, all we have left are the ashes. All of earth’s peoples deserve a better legacy!
Submitted by: Russell Doty · Greeley, Colorado
The Board publishes this comment in its environmental-comment table for this proceeding. It is quoted here as printed; nothing is inferred from it, and it states the commenter's own position in their own words, not this record's.
Permanent address docketyard.org/d/FD-30186/comment/EI-19744 · back to the docket sheet