Rochester Coalition Sues Federal Railroad Administration over DM&E Documents

The Rochester Coalition and the Mayo Clinic filed suit Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., asking the Federal Railroad Administration to turn over documents related to the DM&E railroad requested in a Freedom of Information Act filing made by the group 10 months ago. By law, the FRA was supposed to respond within 20 days of the original request.

The FRA finally answered the Rochester Coalition six months after the April 2006 FOIA request, saying that it had located the documents but could not release them until the DM&E reviewed them for trade secrets. The railroad administration  gave the railroad until Nov. 20, 2006, to complete the review. To date, the DM&E has not responded to the FRA’s request and the FRA has yet to release the documents to the coalition, which triggered the lawsuit.

“The public needs to be able to see what the Department of Transportation is doing with hard-earned taxpayer funds; currently there is absolutely no transparency in this process,” said Stephen Ryan, legal counsel for the Rochester Coalition and the Mayo Clinic. What the Rochester Coalition wants to know is “who owns the company” and other basic financial information, said Jake Reint, spokesperson for the coalition.

The DM&E is requesting a $2.3 billion unsecured loan from the FRA for a railroad expansion project so that it can haul coal from Wyoming to markets in the Midwest. The railroad currently has revenues of about $200 million per year and services South Dakota, southern Minnesota and northern Iowa.

The DM&E did not return a phone call asking for its response to the lawsuit.