Information is from: http://www.elections.state.il.us/CampaignDisclosure/CommitteeDetail.aspx?id=31645
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
Chicago Tribune: Feds, public to hear plan to reduce rail congestion around Chicago
Feds, public to hear plan to reduce rail congestion around Chicago
Rail congestion
Michael Tercha / Chicago Tribune
Trains wait on sidings at the BNSF rail yard on Western Avenue near 18th Street close to the Metra Station on March 21, 2016.
Trains wait on sidings at the BNSF rail yard on Western Avenue near 18th Street close to the Metra Station on March 21, 2016.
(Michael Tercha / Chicago Tribune)
Becky YerakContact ReporterChicago Tribune
A proposed 278-mile rail line billed as relief for freight and traffic congestion in the Chicago area is getting a hearing next month from a federal regulator, even as one potential customer said it's not interested.
The Surface Transportation Board, an arm of the U.S. Department of Transportation, has scheduled public meetings in April to get input on the three-state proposal, partly due to its potential for "significant environmental impacts."
Its developer, Great Lakes Basin Transportation, hasn't publicly divulged its funding sources, but said it envisions the privately financed freight rail project to run in relatively sparsely populated areas from near La Porte, Ind., to Milton, Wis., and to connect with existing major railroads.
The proposed $8 billion rail line would enable freight traffic not destined for, or originating in, Chicago to bypass a Chicago terminal area characterized as "congested" in a Surface Transportation Board notice that appeared in the Federal Register on Friday. Freight transit times through the Chicago area could be reduced from as long as 30 hours to as little as 8 hours, Great Lakes says.
That, in turn, could also provide relief to suburban commuters both in cars and on passenger trains as more freight trains bypass the downtown area, said Great Lakes founder and managing partner Frank Patton.
Map of proposed rail line
Great Lakes said its project would provide major railroads — including BNSF Railway, Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern and CSX — "more efficient options to route trains through the city."
The Illinois Department of Transportation had no immediate comment on the proposed project, which Patton has discussed for years.
But Union Pacific said Monday that, "after carefully reviewing the proposal, Union Pacific determined in July 2014 that it was not interested in moving forward with a discussion on the Great Lakes Basin Railroad's bypass project."
"We have repeatedly communicated this position to Great Lakes Basin's leadership team," Union Pacific spokeswoman Calli Hite said. "Union Pacific is focused on several major public-private partnerships, including CREATE, which will benefit the region and enhance efficiency for Chicago-area and regional railroad operations."
CREATE, or the Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency program, is a partnership between the U.S. Department of Transportation, the state of Illinois, the city of Chicago, Metra, Amtrak and the nation's freight railroads to improve rail line efficiency.
The proposed Great Lakes project would typically consist of two tracks and allow for movements of up to 110 trains a day and could cause the closure of some small rural roads, according to the Surface Transportation Board notice.
Great Lakes said its route would include flyovers, or overpasses, over existing rail lines that it encounters so neither train must wait for the other. "By doing that you eliminate what is now a huge amount of the congestion in the Chicago terminal," said Patton, a former Union League Club of Chicago president and a former software company owner.
The Surface Transportation Board said it will prepare an "environmental impact statement" and, as part of the process, hold eight hearings, including April 11 in Manteno, April 19 in Rockford, April 20 in Rochelle and April 21 in Seneca.
Manteno Mayor Tim Nugent called the Great Lakes project "quite a grandiose undertaking" and said railroads need the line.
"They've got the Surface Transportation Board involved, which is the next step," said Nugent, who plans to attend the April 11 hearing.
Great Lakes' Patton said the estimated tab for the project, which has 14 investors he declined to name, is about $8 billion.
Great Lakes estimates 15 percent to 25 percent of freight traffic doesn't start or end in Chicago, yet must fight its way through a crowded terminal area that also must accommodate Metra and Amtrak passenger trains.
Joseph Schwieterman, director of the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development at DePaul University, said the proposed freight rail project would be "good news for shippers looking to one day avoid the traffic entanglement that our city has become."
"We have almost forgotten in this country how to build new lines for freight movements," Schwieterman said.
The Chicago area "simply won't have enough rail capacity to handle all the projected traffic growth," he said. "This problem is putting wind in the sails of this project's supporters."
Schwieterman said there's enough undeveloped land "around the periphery of our region to build this line with relatively little demolition required."
Funding will be a key factor in whether the project comes to fruition. "A strong coalition has been put together," said P.S. Sriraj, interim executive director of the Urban Transportation Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who has seen the proposal. "It seems like they've done their homework about the need and feasibility of it."
Great Lakes' plans, according to the Surface Transportation Board, include building a terminal near Manteno that would provide switching, servicing, and car and locomotive repair.
The environmental study is expected to take 18 months to 36 months, Patton said.
The board's environmental impact statement will analyze the potential impacts of construction and operation, including for alternative routes. The board could deny Great Lakes' petition or application to build.
Receiving a permit to build alone would cost $30 million to $50 million, Patton said.
To acquire the land, property owners would be offered the equivalent of $20,000 an acre, receive free residential electricity, and receive access to the rail if they have, say, grain to ship, Patton said.
Patton didn't rule out using eminent domain to get certain parcels.
Above is from: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-illinois-rail-line-0322-biz-20160318-story.html
Al Franken: "90 percent" of Republicans in Congress really believe in climate change
Al Franken: "90 percent" of Republicans in Congress really believe in climate change
Tuesday, March 22, 2016 at 6:46 a.m.
By Mike Mullen
Al Franken says Republicans are much more accepting of climate change than they let on.
Star Tribune
Congress won't be passing any bills to address man-made climate change. Not this year. Maybe not for a long while. Probably not until the Atlantic Ocean reaches the parking lots of Capitol Hill.
Most people think they know why American elected officials won't lift a finger to address global warming. It's because those darned Republicans in control of the U.S. House and Senate are anti-science.
This accepted wisdom is wrong, according to DFL U.S. Sen. Al Franken. After eight years in office, Franken has come to believe that the GOP's denial of a warming planet is less about climate science than political science.
In a new essay in the New York Review of Books, author Michael Tomasky tries to understand how Republican politics, and the presidential field it hatched, has come to tilt so heavily toward the right. Other factors are at play, but one is best explained by Minnesota's junior senator.
Republicans in Washington, D.C., are not afraid of attacks from Democrats, Franken says. They're afraid of other Republicans. Franken says his GOP colleagues won't ever pull the trigger on a vote affirming the existence of climate change because they fear being "primaried" by a single-issue wacko from the right wing.
Do you think they know about the Koch Brothers?
Regardless of qualifications, or other positions, that candidate would have the support of the billionaire Koch Brothers, whose top priority is an absolute refusal to act on global warming in any way that would cut America's fossil fuel use.
Have Republicans in Congress internalized those beliefs? Or are they just faking for C-SPAN's ever-watching eye? Tomasky asks what percentage of the GOP members Franken thinks believe in man-made climate change.
“Oh,” Franken said, “Ninety.” He explained that in committee hearings, for example, witnesses from the Department of Energy come to discuss the department’s renewable energy strategy, “and none of them challenge the need for this stuff.”
If Franken's right, the modern GOP establishment looks less like a bunch of know-nothings, and more like the actual Know Nothings.
Is it staunch conservatism? Or cowardice? Perhaps a little of both. Tomasky quotes former congressman Barney Frank, who once referenced another Minnesotan in a cutting illustration of why Congress doesn't work.
"Half of them are Michele Bachmann," Frank said. "The other half are afraid of losing a primary to Michele Bachmann."
Above is from: http://www.citypages.com/news/al-franken-90-percent-of-republicans-in-congress-really-believe-in-climate-change-8142493
WBEZ News:When Rahm Met Rauner
When Rahm Met Rauner
March 21, 2016
AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast
Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, left, shakes the hand of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, right, before Rauner's address to the city council Wednesday, May 6, 2015, in Chicago. The historic address, the first by a sitting governor in the council's chambers, focused on the city's and state's financial and economic challenges.
- Because you have a lot of zeroes next to your name doesn’t mean you know everything."
In January, Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner fondly told the story of how he first met Mayor Rahm Emanuel. He was interviewed onstage by his neighbor, David Kahnweiler, at a breakfast event for realtors. Rauner’s rendition of this first encounter went on for more than five minutes: He regaled about the combative nature of their first meeting, how Rauner pushed Emanuel into investment banking, and how Emanuel had “some testosterone like I haven’t seen in awhile.”
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On Monday, Emanuel got a chance to share his side of the story. After an interview with WBEZ previewing a speech he’ll make about the development of Chicago’s parks, Lakefront and Chicago river, Emanuel said he remembered Rauner used words not suitable for a “family friendly radio station.”
There are a few minor moments where the two differ in their accounts: For example, Emanuel skips over his requests to be a partner at Rauner’s firm, which Rauner includes in his narrative in great detail. But for the most part, the two accounts match, and each politician found ways to take a shot at the other one -- something they’ve both become accustomed to doing through media over the last few months.
Here’s the transcription of Emanuel’s story:
EMANUEL: The way I remember it, when I was leaving the Clinton White House, Amy and I, we had one child, another one on the way, and I’d been in public life. I didn’t have any money and I had a family. Or, no real money or savings. And so I wanted to go into finance, and he - and I think it was Erskine who introduced us, Erskine Bowles.
So, that’s how that happened and [Rauner] said I didn’t know - this is a family-friendly radio station - so he used some colorful language: ‘I didn’t know anything about anything,’ and you know ‘Just because you’re from the White House, and a Democrat’ blah, blah, blah. But he did say, you know, he basically told me I was a fool, I was an idiot, and I didn’t know anything.
So I went from what was his side, which was private equity, to investment banking. I can’t remember if he gave me that advice or not.
And one day I called him, and I said, in the industry it’s like, ‘who’s covering you’ or ‘who follows you’, he says ‘Nobody,’ and I said, ‘Well, I’m it now. For our firm.’ And I brought them a transaction, which was a home security business -- there’s a whole ‘nother story about how I got that, but that said -- and let’s just say it was, according to them, although I kept the transaction alive for about a year, it was the best deal, as a return on investment for them, they had ever done.
And [I] worked it hard, and I think he thinks that we, that I was pretty good at it, for a guy who never had a business degree, never had a law degree which is the only way he would ever talk to you, back then. (Laughs)
LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: That’s pretty much how he told it, except for they talked about - well he, definitely had some heat in there - but he talked about how it was part of your relationship that you guys have always been at each other's throats.
EMANUEL: Butted heads.
CHOOLJIAN: That you argued with him, from the minute you met him.
EMANUEL: He would call me, yeah he called me all kinds of names, and about political labels and stuff like that for people I work for or whatever.
And I told him, ‘You know, just because you have a lot of zeroes next to your name doesn’t mean you know everything you need to know.”
CHOOLJIAN: So why did you keep being friends with him?
EMANUEL: Um, he’s great material to work off. (Laughs)
Lauren Chooljian covers city politics for WBEZ. Follow her@laurenchooljian
Above is from: https://www.wbez.org/shows/wbez-news/when-rahm-met-rauner/73e9696c-3db4-4b22-99d9-f0d7468cb4dc#
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