WASHINGTON — Four federal legislators — three from Missouri and one from Kansas — have told regulators that they back the proposed Canadian Pacific-Kansas City Southern merger.
Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt and Reps. Sam Graves and Emanuel Cleaver, along with Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran — all Republicans — told the Surface Transportation Board in an Aug. 3 letter that the merger “deserves fair consideration.”
“We look forward to the growth opportunities this new combined, single line service will provide the greater Kansas City region and territory,” they wrote.
They also touted the merger’s potential economic benefits, including improved rail competition, investment in new sidings and signal systems, and the addition of 750 operating jobs on the combined railroad in the U.S.
Kansas City will become Canadian Pacific Kansas City’s U.S. headquarters and will gain some jobs that are currently located at CP’s offices in Minneapolis.
The letter comes little more than a week after an Illinois delegation urged the STB to reject the merger, citing the potential impact of increased freight traffic on communities near Chicago, as well as Metra service.
Chicago (and Illinois) voters are getting exactly what they voted for. As an Illinois resident not in Chicago, our situation is best described by paraphrasing German Chancellor Betthman-Hollweg’s on having Austria-Hungary as an ally: “Like being shackled to a corpse”.
Congressman Emanuel Cleaver is a Democrat.
I’m old enough to remember when Chicago was called “The city that works.” A corrupt but effective, accomplished city government. Now it’s corrupt and ineffective.
And for those of you beating up on Mayor Lori Lightfoot, she was the better of the two candidates. The other candidate was, if such can be believed, even worse.
Chicago (and Illinois) voters are getting exactly what they voted for.
As for the Illinois delegation, especially Chicago…it’s OK to watch Boeing walk, but not ok to see the Bears walk. It’s OK to shoo away rail business, but its ok to spend millions making rail more attractive via CREATE. In Illinois they cut taxes on strip mined high sulphur coal, but they create green regulations so strict that no one can frac for oil (which Illinois has plenty). In Illinois its ok to take what are essentially pay day loans on property taxes to prop up public service unions while state wide school districts are going bankrupt because the state is over 18 months behind in tax reimbursement. In Illinois they start a grant program to make EV’s more affordable to the poor, but at the same time implement an EV road tax that consumes 40% of the grant. Essentially shifting general revenue over to the road fund without knowing it. And when a railroad approaches the state in good faith to increase operations, all these towns hold their hands out looking for what amounts to an infrastructure bribe. Some how I am just not jibing with anyone in what is called the Illinois delegation.
John – add Caterpillar to the growing list of those companies that have or will be walking out of Illinois. And Cat owns Progress Rail.