Comment Re:Lobbying Against PTC (Score 1) 393
In May, the railroads and their regulators learned 565 American Indian tribes had the right to review, one by one, whether 22,000 antennae required for the system to work might be built on sacred ground. That’s as many wireless tower applications as the U.S. Federal Communications Commission approves in two years.
“I’m just speechless,” said Grady Cothen, who retired in 2010 from the Federal Railroad Administration as the deputy associate administrator for safety standards. “I didn’t expect this issue to arise.”
The resulting backup may give railroads including Warren Buffett’s Burlington Northern Santa Fe another reason to miss the December 2015 deadline to finish a $13.2 billion project covering one-third of the U.S. rail network.