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an amendment championed by Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., which quietly laid the tracks for funding the largest railroad project in almost 100 years. It’ll cost $2.5 billion, run 880 miles and link the coalfields of Wyoming’s Powder River Basin to the power plants of the Midwest.
Dayton’s problem? Before becoming senator, Thune had been through that revolving door. After serving three terms as South Dakota’s lone congressman, he spent 18 months as a lobbyist for the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad, the company that’s building the new railroad. It was then that he and DM&E President Kevin Schieffer realized one way to get the stalled eight-year-old project going was through a Federal Railroad Administration loan.
There were problems with the idea, of course. For one thing, the project didn’t precisely fit the loan program, whose mandate was to help railroads fix existing track. Worse, the program was small: Its entire annual budget was only $3.5 billion.
While lobbying for the DM&E in 2004, Thune was campaigning for South Dakota’s Senate seat. And when he won, he continued to push for the project.