We have to remember that it doesn't even have to be a first-hand affected party that can file a suit to stop any project. The Tongue River project finally cleared enough hurdles to have an approved route. It won't be just being a short-cut that causes the line to be built, it will be the result of some new mines coming on-line that might be enough to get it going. With all of the "out-of-towners" buying up huge chunks of Montana (like the Hollywood elitists needing a place to "get away" from all of the little folk who adore them and put them on little pedestals)--and then fence it all off and proclaim that this is MY space. They will file an injunction if they even smell a potential project in "their" area. That area including a 50-mile radius of their property.

It's a good thing that the highway system, the primary railroad system(s), and most of the power transmission and distribution systems were in place before the lawyers took over the country or NOTHING would exist today as we know it.

The Tongue has approval to build, but without additional on-line traffic, funding to build it will probably not come easy.