The Rapid City Journal reports this morning that new Mayo Clinic board member Tom Daschle says he's not opposed to the DM&E railroad expansion:
Tom Daschle downplays his role at Mayo Clinic
Former U.S. Sen. Tom Daschle said Tuesday that his recent appointment to the board of directors of the Mayo Clinic would not put him at odds with a Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad project opposed by the clinic.
“I was just elected to the Mayo board about a week ago. I have never discussed this issue with the people of the Mayo Clinic,” Daschle said of the railroad’s proposed $2.5 billion project. “I am not working against it and have nothing to do with the DM&E project now.”
Mayo Clinic opposes the DM&E project linking coal fields in eastern Wyoming with Midwestern power plants. Mayo officials argue that the dramatic increase in train traffic on the rail line that runs past the clinic would be harmful to the well-known medical facility.
U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton supports the clinic and opposes the DM&E expansion. Dayton caused a political firestorm this week when he was quoted in an online story for Fortune Magazine as saying that the Mayo Clinic was “worth a hell of a lot more than the entire state of South Dakota.”
Asked to respond to that comment, Daschle, a former Democratic colleague of Dayton’s in the Senate, said: “Of course, I don’t agree with Sen. Dayton’s remarkable assertion.”
Daschle didn’t attend the meeting at which he was elected to the board. He will attend his first Mayo board meeting in May.
SDWC has posted a copy of the state GOP's challenge to Daschle about his new involvement with the Mayo Clinic, which opposes the new South Dakota railroad line, and the commentary is intense.
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