Federal law covers interstate commerce, and over rules state or local legal authority. And, this would clearly fall under interstate commerce, and thus the Surface Transportation Board would have authority, not the pandering neo-luddite City Council majority in the Peoples Republic of Eugene.

I'm not that high on coal as the fuel of the future, or as a significant export commodity to China. I'm actually someone who believes the science on things like CO2 emissions, and it seems like there is a lot of cheaper coal that is closer at hand for these purported Asian markets. But, as I am also an equal opportunity critic of stupid in general, so I'm not that high on the politics of pandering to various types psuedo environmental ignorance, either.

This kind of pandering and stupidity is being used to oppose the proposed "evil polluting" new container yard for BNSF in the Ports of LA-LB.

This is so absurd that s ome have even called for a "new" container distribution system to be done by a set of what would appear to be a fleet of "sushi boats" floating in tunnels, which are to be drilled under LA, to replace container movements, by evil trucks on our freeways and by those evil bad choo-choo's. This magic system will just make the traffic and truck disappear, and supposedly even clean the air...... and it's going to be privately financed, too... A delusion for every ideology in that one.

So, it's not just the time of year when Halloween is coming soon, this kind of crazy and stupid is scary all of the time.