Seven County Infrastructure Coalition selects private partner to finance and build the Uinta Basin Railway
Railway to bring economic stability while maintaining environmental regulations
Uinta Basin, Utah (May 10, 2019) – The Seven County Infrastructure Coalition board voted to select Drexel Hamilton Infrastructure Partners, LP for a public-private partnership to finance and build the proposed Uinta Basin Railway.
This Uinta Basin Railway is a new rail line proposed by the Coalition that will connect the Uinta Basin’s various industries to the national rail network. The railway will provide the long understood need for a cost-effective solution for additional transportation infrastructure in the Uinta Basin
“Drexel Hamilton brings a wealth of industry experience and valuable resources and we are excited to partner with them to advance the Uinta Basin Railway,” said Mike McKee, executive director of the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition. “This is an important milestone for the project and shows our commitment to furthering the railway to drive economic development, enable sustainable communities and enrich the quality of life for residents throughout the state and region.”
Once the public-private partnership is finalized through definitive agreements, Drexel Hamilton will finance, develop and construct the Uinta Basin Railway. They are partnered with Rio Grande Pacific Corporation to operate and maintain the railway.
The Coalition will continue in its current role as the public partner responsible for obtaining environmental clearance and authorization from the U.S. Surface Transportation Board. The Surface Transportation Board will oversee the National Environmental Policy Act process for the railway by preparing an environmental impact statement.
The Board also voted to approve a rail term sheet with the Ute Indian Tribe. The Coalition and the Tribe continue ongoing, positive discussions in an effort to take steps towards a formal partnership. The Coalition appreciates the support that the Tribal natural resources offices and energy and minerals departments have provided thus far.
Similar projects that Drexel Hamilton has successfully completed include acting as the developer of the largest crude oil export port in the Western Hemisphere, a $2.5 billion crude oil terminal complex called Plaquemines Liquid Terminal. The terminal is served by the New Orleans & Gulf Coast Railway, a short line railroad owned by Rio Grande Pacific. They operate some 700 miles of short line and regional railroads in six midwestern and western states.
“We think the Uinta Basin is America’s most prolific stranded crude oil basin and deserves its place alongside the other great oil plays like the Permian and Bakken. The Uinta is similar to Alberta oil reserves in Canada where transportation bottlenecks exist and have limited its ability to be refined in distant markets,” said Mark Michel, Managing Partner, Drexel Hamilton.
The Uinta Basin Railway will provide economic stability to communities in the Uinta Basin by creating well-paying jobs and increasing opportunities for the Basin’s main industries: oil and gas, agriculture and livestock, and mining. The goods produced by these industries play a critical role in the U.S. economy, providing fuel for automobiles, plastics for medical supplies, and feed for livestock throughout the U.S.
Learn more about the Uinta Basin Railway project at uintabasinrailway.com.
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Seven County Infrastructure Coalition: The Coalition was formed in 2014 in an effort to promote cooperative regional planning, increase economic opportunities, and implement sustainable infrastructure projects. Member counties include Carbon, Daggett, Duchesne, Emery, San Juan, Sevier, and Uintah. Visit SCIC-utah.org.
Drexel Hamilton Infrastructure Partners, LP: Drexel Hamilton is a full-service institutional broker-dealer offering solutions for a wide array of client needs. Drexel cares deeply about the communities we have thrived in and continuously aims to support foundations that bolster both diversity and inclusion, and aiding veterans to re-adjust to civilian life.
Rio Grande Pacific Corporation: Rio Grande Pacific Corporation (RGPC) is a privately held, Texas-based holding company for regional freight railroads and railroad related firms. RGPC rail subsidiaries serve hundreds of domestic customers, including many Fortune 500 firms, and move a diverse mixture of commodities in the agricultural, chemical, energy, forest products, mineral and recycling and steel industries. The firm’s portfolio of wholly owned subsidiaries includes international rail consulting, railway signal design and engineering, specialty railroad equipment re-manufacturing, third party train dispatching and commuter/transit O & E services.
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The most dangerous countries for females
“We have an abundance of rape and violence against women in this country and on this Earth, though it's almost never treated as a civil rights or human rights issue, or a crisis, or even a pattern. Violence doesn't have a race, a class, a religion, or a nationality, but it does have a gender,” penned Rebecca Solnit in her book, Men Explain Things to Me.
India, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Yemen, Nigeria, and the United States. What did these 10 countries share in common in 2018?
Sexual violence, sexual slavery, forced marriage, human trafficking, and non-sexual violence among other risks (healthcare, access to economic resources, customary practices). That’s according to the 2018 survey from the Thomson Reuters Foundation (195 countries were included) www.reuters.com.
Sexual Violence included rape as a weapon of war; domestic rape; rape by a stranger; the lack of access to justice in rape cases; sexual harassment and coercion into sex as a form of corruption. Non-Sexual Violence included conflict-related violence and forms of domestic physical and mental abuse.
“The only Western nation in the top 10 and joint third with Syria for the risks women face in terms of sexual violence, including rape, sexual harassment, coercion into sex and a lack of access to justice in rape cases. The survey came after the #MeToo campaign went viral last year, with thousands of women using the social media movement to share stories of sexual harassment or abuse,” according to the foundation.
India was named as the most dangerous country for women in the 2018 survey. “Violence against women in India has caused national and international outrage and protests since the 2012 gang-rape and murder of a student on a bus in New Delhi.” www.poll2018.trust.org/.
Nigeria was named the fourth most dangerous country along with Russia when it came to human trafficking.
In 2011, a survey from the same foundation identified the five most dangerous countries for women: Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, India, and Somalia.
According to the 2019 Global Study on Homicide (gender-related killing of women and girls), it is estimated that of the 87,000 women who were intentionally killed in 2017 globally, more than half were killed by intimate partners or family members, meaning that 137 women across the world are killed by a member of their own family every day.
“If we are to fight discrimination and injustice against women we must start from the home for if a woman cannot be safe in her own house then she cannot be expected to feel safe anywhere,” proclaimed Aysha Taryam.
A global study from the United Nations Population Fund revealed that girls and young women with disabilities face up to 10 times more gender-based violence than those without disabilities. Girls with intellectual disabilities are particularly vulnerable to sexual violence. www.unfpa.org.
“From Pakistan to the US, it is still very difficult for military women to speak of sexual assault and seek justice,” according to a 2018 article at www.aljazeera.com. “Countries like the US, France, UK, Israel and Canada have made some efforts to reform reporting and response mechanisms for sexual violence crimes to ensure protection for the victims and a higher likelihood for the perpetrators to be held accountable. None of these efforts has been enough, however.”
“There are two kinds of males - men who stand up for women’s rights and cowards. The choice is yours.” ―Abaida Mahmood
Melissa Martin, Ph.D., is an author, columnist, educator, and therapist. She lives in Ohio.
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Dear Editor:
Please consider this piece asking my fellow Americans if we are going to stand for the lies and war threats that seem to be a desperate attempt to avoid accountability. For PeaceVoice, thank you.
Iran wags impeachment dog
by Tom H. Hastings
691 words
Trump is blustering at Iran and to the world that we might just need to crush that pipsqueak terror country.
Um…it took nine years to invade, occupy, and finally limp out of Iraq, 288,000 Iraqi and American deaths later. Iraq is a third the population of Iran. War there would be many times more destructive, just when we need the militaries of the world to wake up to climate chaos and stop consuming vast quantities of fossil fuel.
Let’s also recall that the invasion of Iraq was only sold to the American people by the creation of Fake News, by the incessant repetition of two categorical lies: 1) Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, 2) Saddam might give one or more of his nuclear weapons to Osama bin Laden.
Why is Trump doing this now? Is this drumbeat also based on lies?
Well, to misquote Mae West, “Is that a subpoena in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”
Trump’s coterie, his closest, his family, and his henchpeople are either in prison, heading there once they are through cooperating with prosecutors or Special Counsel, or about to get a Congressional force-of-law subpoena to come testify and/or hand over germane documents. The stench of corruption is revealing that Trump’s promised plan to “drain the swamp” worked only because he brought in a cesspool with which to replace it.
More from Trump’s inner circle have traded their charcoal Brooks Brothers power suits for orange jump suits as more evidence comes to light. More than 200 separate criminal charges have already been filed just in the Mueller investigation against several entities and at least 34 individuals associated with Trump’s campaign or his administration and we expect more from other courts.
The protracted and determined effort to get Trump’s tax returns is also proceeding with force of law and virtually all his financial dealings—personal, family “charity,” campaign, inaugural committee, business entities—are being revealed as corrupt, illegal, cheating, and often literally bankrupt. His horde of lawyers are suing everyone they can think of—Deutsche Bank, Capitol One, Mazars, House Oversight Committee chair Elijah Cummings—in a flustered attempt to contain each damning revelation.
We are reminded now on a daily basis of Trump’s declaration that he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters. He’s stonewalling every Congressional subpoena and refusing to allow anyone to answer any of those subpoenas to come testify and answer questions by any Congressional committees. What’s next for this wannabe monarch? Declare Divine Right? Summary executions? Jus primae noctis?
Even Richard Nixon in his worst criminal noncooperative period didn’t go as far as Trump is now, desperate to prevent any truth at all from reaching the American people.
We deserve to know what Trump and his people did to steal the 2016 election; we deserve to know what the Russians have on Trump and his people that allowed them to exert so much leverage on Trump then and now; we deserve to know just how many election and financial and national security laws Trump violated then and now.
Instead, it’s Wag the Dog time; scream bloody hell about Iran, let loose the dogs of war under kennel master John Bolton and dictator whisperer Mike Pompeo and leap around madly, hoping to distract us all, even if it takes another war of choice based on lies in the Middle East, even if it credibly threatens millions of human lives, even if it consumes literally billions of gallons of absolutely unnecessary fossil fuel by naval battle groups already on their way and thousands of provocative military jet flights taunting and then possibly attacking Iran.
Will we fall for this garbage move? Will Trump attempt to do what so many autocrats have done when they feel imperiled by popular disapproval and launch a war, initiated by a false flag operation or concocted false intelligence reports? Will we be suckers complicit in mass murder?
The 2016 election was stolen by thieves, foreign and domestic. Will we the American people insist on justice and defense of democracy or will we sit back and take more of this abuse?
—30—
Dr. Tom H. Hastings is PeaceVoice Director and on occasion an expert witness for the defense in court.
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NEW FOUND GLORY
Celebrates Charting Success of
From The Screen To Your Stereo 3
#5 Current Digital Albums
#5 Current Alternative Albums
#7 Top Current Rock Albums
#7 Record Label INDEPENDENT Current Albums
#16 Top Current Albums
Available to Purchase and Stream Today
via Hopeless Records at
"After nine studio albums, three EPs, two splits, three cover albums,
a live album, and a greatest hits album, not to mention
endless tours and festival appearances, the band still
shows no signs of slowing down." - Billboard
May 17, 2019 - Coral Springs, FL - New Found Glory are celebrating the charting success of their most recent release, From The Screen To Your Stereo 3. The pop-punk giants secured spots on the US Billboard Charts including #5 Current Digital Albums, #5 Current Alternative Albums, #7 Top Current Rock Albums, #7 Record Label INDEPENDENT Current Albums and #16 Top Current Albums.
The third installment of the band's critically acclaimed nostalgic movie cover records features tracks from iconic film soundtracks like "Eye Of The Tiger" (Rocky 3), "This Is Me" (The Greatest Showman), "The Power of Love" (Back to the Future) and "Let It Go" (Frozen). The EP was released last Friday via Hopeless Records and is available to purchase and stream today at
http://smarturl.it/NFGscreen3.
Later this month, fans will have the chance to hear all these covers and more on the From The Screen To Your Stereo To Your Town Tour! New Found Glory will be joined by Real Friends, The Early November and Doll Skin for a stacked lineup that will be taking off across the United States beginning on May 30th. Super Fan Bundle Packages and general tickets for all dates are available now at newfoundglory.shofetti.com.
A full list of tour dates can be found below.
UPCOMING NEW FOUND GLORY TOUR DATES
May 30 - Charleston, SC - The Music Farm
May 31 - Atlanta, GA - Heaven at The Masquerade
June 2 - Franklin, TN - Liberty Hall at The Factory*
June 4 - Charlotte, NC - The Underground
June 5 - Norfolk, VA - The NorVa
June 6 - Baltimore, MD - Baltimore Soundstage - SOLD OUT
June 7 - Philadelphia, PA - Franklin Music Hall
June 8 - Sayreville, NJ - Starland Ballroom
June 9 - Boston, MA - House of Blues
June 11 - New York, NY - Playstation Theater
June 12 - Buffalo, NY - Town Ballroom - SOLD OUT
June 14 - Cleveland, OH - House of Blues
June 15 - Columbus, OH - Newport Music Hall**
June 16 - Detroit, MI - St. Andrew's Hall
June 18 - Indianapolis, IN - Egyptian Room at Old National Centre
June 19 - St. Louis, MO - Delmar Hall
June 21 - Minneapolis, MN - Varsity Theater - SOLD OUT
June 22 - Milwaukee, WI - The Rave
June 23 - Chicago, IL - Concord Music Hall
June 25 - Lawrence, KS - Granada Theater
June 26 - Denver, CO - Ogden Theatre
June 27 - Salt Lake City, UT - Union Event Center
June 29 - Berkeley, CA - The UC Theatre
June 30 - Anaheim, CA - House of Blues
July 2 - Los Angeles, CA - The Belasco Theater
July 3 - San Diego, CA - House of Blues
July 5 - Las Vegas, NV - House of Blues
July 6 - Phoenix, AZ - The Van Buren
July 8 - Dallas, TX - Gas Monkey Live!
July 9 - Austin, TX - Emo's Austin
July 10 - Houston, TX - House of Blues
July 11 - New Orleans, LA - House of Blues
July 13 - Lake Buena Vista, FL - House of Blues
July 14 - Fort Lauderdale, FL - Revolution Live
* - BreakFEST
** - No The Early November
The From The Screen To Your Stereo To Your Town Tour will include a very special stop in Franklin, TN for the second annual BreakFEST, a full day festival showcasing not only music, but the most important meal of the day - breakfast. Taking place on June 2, 2019, the event will be held inside The Factory. Bringing together both old and new friends in the music scene likeMae, Hawthorne Heights, Microwave, Jetty Bones, Love You Later, Doll Skin, H.A.R.D. and tour mates Real Friends and The Early November, BreakFEST is just another way that New Found Glory continues to find unique ways to connect with their fans and their local communities. For more information, please go to http://breakfest.net/.
