I have to admit that I am in favor of environmental responsibility, as I think the majority of people are. I also remember how bad the smog was in most of SoCal as a kid (much worse with half the population to create it), and how intimidating the smog equipment was on the new vehicles. But - my poor 03 Toyota pickup is now approaching almost 300k without any major repairs despite my occasionally hauling literally a ton of railroad related crap with it. Even with 4WD and AC, I still get almost double the mileage with its 2.7L compared to my 78 Chevy 2WD w/o AC that had to be repaired many times.

What I do object to is filling up with "clean" gas while traveling and losing 10% of my mileage. Ethanol is valuable as an additive, but we shouldn't be mandating at a fuel quite yet. Technology is advancing, and the day will come when ethanol will be able to be economically created from various waste biomass products.

Why wasn't cane based ethanol allowed to be imported? A very simple answer - despite the claim we have a "free market" "supply and demand" economy, in reality we have a very corrupted system driven by politics. Environmentalist "activists" pressure politicians to adopt their agenda into law, and the farm lobby sees an opportunity to make money especially for the corn growing regions. Our agricultural and general economy is a convoluted mess of political favors, subsidies and exemptions. Under a true "free market" system, ethanol would have collapsed as would have many of the "green energy" programs (including solar, wind, biomass and many co-gen power sources). I don't mind our federal government investing in R&D, we have greatly benefited from technologies originally developed for our military or NASA, but what did we get from Solyndra? And with our new "world economy" many of these investments result in us importing the final product.

Back to our wonderful world of railroading - We do need our locomotives to become more fuel efficient with lower emissions. We do need to support established and reputable manufacturers in these efforts, and every now and then take a reasonable gamble on promising alternative technology. We also to need to hold activists and politicians responsible the truth of reality. I love the claim of "emissions free" electric powered technology whether it be a car, electric lawnmower or electric transit. The electricity to charge it has to come from somewhere. The further the energy source is from its final use the greater the loss in transporting it there. (Notice those big "dirty" power plants are usually in the middle of nowhere, and the majority of the consuming urban areas are hundreds if not thousands of miles away?) And new batteries are not made from sunshine and happiness, but some very nasty chemicals and metals.

Do we really need, at this time, for a locomotive to be restricted to the same emissions per bhp compared to an over the road truck? If we just switched 20% of the cross country truck traffic to rail imagine the fuel and environmental savings even with our current "dirty" locomotive fleet because of rail's natural efficiency? (Then again, can you imagine BNSF trying to move even 5% more traffic right now?)

The environmental impact of the forced upgrading or scrapping of rail equipment should be considered as part of the equation. I will bet that none of these "new, clean and green" high speed diesel engines being installed in locomotives or trucks will still be in service in 10 years. They will be mechanically worn out beyond economical repair, their emissions and electronic controls will be long obsolete and unsupported by their manufacturers. The only option will be to scrap them and buy a very new replacement built by third world labor that is fueled by grass clippings from the 1% mansions, government employees and politicians yards mowed by "undocumented" immigrants and the only emissions are rainbow farts. I wonder what will happen to the rest of us?