DM&E

Argus Leader:

The U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals Thursday ruled on three issues dealing with the Dakota Minnesota & Eastern’s plan to extend its line more than 200 miles to Wyoming’s Powder River Basin to haul coal mined there to power plants in the Midwest and East.

Those three issues were the only remaining legal challenges to the federal Surface Transportation Board’s approval of the DM&E proposal.

The court ruled in favor of the railroad on all three points.

It concluded the STB was not required to take into account the DM&E’s purchase of a railroad on its eastern end, the IMRL, when the STB reviewed the environmental impact of the coal-hauling project.